tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194Sun, 20 Nov 2016 12:27:46 +0000ZeitgeistDetroitLibertarianOccupyPoliticsV-RADIOVenus ProjectV-RADIO BlogThe blog for the V-RADIO podcast and youtube channel. http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (VTV)Blogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-1480255867158834439Sat, 31 Mar 2012 15:45:00 +00002012-03-31T19:44:47.107-07:00My review of "Paradise or Oblivion".<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://0.gvt0.com/vi/KphWsnhZ4Ag/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KphWsnhZ4Ag&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KphWsnhZ4Ag&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Recently I was given the privilege of reviewing the Venus Project's new film “Paradise or Oblivion” before release. I talked with Roxanne Meadows ahead of time, going over the details and all of the work that went into it. The Venus Project has been hard at work looking through their hours and hours of archived footage to put together a strong presentation. Some of it from tours of the Venus Project, some of it from lectures Jacque has given recently, and still more from over 60+ hours of unused footage that was shot during the making of “The Future by Design”. <br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Future by Design” concentrated more on Jacque, his background and his designs where as Paradise or Oblivion you will get to see some excellent elaborations by Jacque Fresco on more of the “nuts and bolts” of the social direction that is supported by the Venus Project. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That footage alone was sufficient reason to watch the film. But there is plenty of other great clips used in the film. I actually realized some of it came from the time I had visited the Venus Project, which brought a smile to my face. Throughout the film it also brought to bear the reality of our world slowly moving towards collapse with footage that suggests the "Occupy" movement is part of that pain signal of society. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The movie was narrated by Joel Holt, who did a wonderful job of articulating himself and telling the “story” of the film. His voice was the perfect blend of “honest” with “serious”. The presentation provided because of it gave a sense of urgency to the problems in the world without being “spooky” or sensationalist. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Overall, I feel this film did an excellent job of sharing with the audience the problems that the Venus Project seeks to solve, and the solutions that we need. If you are a veteran of activism involving the Venus Project it is worth watching to see footage of Jacque you may not be familiar with even if you are familiar with the material presented. It is an excellent tool for introducing people to the concepts of the Venus Project. And while I do not feel it replaces “Welcome to the Future” in my heart as my favorite film about Jacque's work, it provides a further elaboration to that work. Finally there is a modern film about the Venus Project with no baggage from other films associated with the work. And it does all of this in less then an hour. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div>I highly recommend this film.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/my-review-of-paradise-or-oblivion.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-6058776372568253728Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:23:00 +00002011-12-25T11:36:44.865-08:00Christmas with V-RADIO!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-giROveKBzbo/Tvd4C8U5RRI/AAAAAAAAAB0/j9ODqs6Sepg/s1600/christmas-define-necessity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-giROveKBzbo/Tvd4C8U5RRI/AAAAAAAAAB0/j9ODqs6Sepg/s320/christmas-define-necessity.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Christmas” with V-RADIO.</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So a little while ago, I did a show called “Thoughts on Thanksgiving”. I did the show while I was sitting in seclusion during a Thanksgiving dinner I had been invited to on my way to Occupy Flint. One of the things I mentioned was a picture called “Define Necessity”. A picture with a starving African child next to a picture of a typical American Christmas. Complete with a tree, presents, etc. I remember the picture well, as I had put it up on my V-RADIO Facebook page. I went to look for it again today and found it had been deleted. I did a search for it, and found out that it had been deleted from many Facebook pages. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So I decided to share the photo again. And was not surprised that many people clicked like on the photo. But I was surprised that a few people very loudly protested the photo being posted on Christmas. A couple of comments that come to mind: </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Hey man, I support TZM but why would you post this on Christmas???” </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Lighten the fuck up! Xmas is the only day of the year when you and your family can feel free! TVP really needs to re-evaluate some stuff!”</span></span></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">There were some other comments that were even less polite. And the conversation is still going on there. I found it interesting that people would still be protective of their feelings about Christmas. </span></span></span> <br /><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">My point in posting this, just as my points I made during the "Thoughts on Thanksgiving episode" is to try and pair up two realities that people usually refuse to link. And that is that we are doing well in the 1st world, usually at the expense of the people in the 3rd world. People do not want to be reminded that there are people doing terribly in other countries because we are doing well in the West, or in the more wealthy countries of the world. The people who were upset with me mostly seemed to be angry that I rattled their cage and want to be left alone in the bubble they put themselves in. They do not want to face that they constantly turn their backs on the economic reality that there are people not only doing worse then they are, that they are doing absolutely horribly.&nbsp;</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Later on in the conversation on the facebook group, one of them said that he didn't like that this was happening, but that he lived a hard life working for his boss at home and all that, so therefore it was OK that he practiced Christmas. I have a feeling the boy in the picture would happily trade his life of not having anything or the ability to work to get anything for the&nbsp;drudgery&nbsp;of wager slavery that most people in the West are so hounded by. The holidays are a time when we are the most brainwashed by the advertising of this consumer culture. And the notion that we somehow feel "free" then is absurd.&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">So I decided to talk about Christmas, and really dig into the issue. So there are two major elements to this issue I want to touch on. The first would be the religious aspect, and the second would be the consumerist aspect. The two are linked in many ways. But both deserve their own attention. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">I recently found a video called “Why was Christmas banned in America until 1820?” The video was posted by a Christian who no doubt was part of the few sects that do not practice Christmas, Halloween, etc. Most of these Christians are upset that the holiday is not being celebrated with enough emphasis on Christ's birth. The problem is that the holiday was designed from the start to attempt to attract pagans to Christianity. And that Christ was according to the bible born in the Spring anyway. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The same can be said of the “Easter Bunny” and “Easter Eggs” being fertility symbols and being used during the spring festival of fertility. No mention of using rabbits or eggs in remembrance of Christ rising from the dead in the bible. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Point of fact the majority of Holidays practiced in the supposedly “Christian West” all have Pagan origins. The truth is, Christianity is kind of boring. You will notice that virtually every symbol that is used to “celebrate” Christmas is not in any way related to anything biblical. At no point does any of the prophets or other supposedly divine influenced individuals in the bible even suggest a holiday for the birth of Christ. There are many holidays practiced by Pagans around the same time as what we understand to be Christmas however. Including the birth of the sun god Mithra. And in fact, some of the practices that are seen in most Christian homes that are supposedly about Christmas are even pointed out as something Christians should not be doing at all. </span></span></span> </div><h3 align="LEFT" class="western"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Jeremiah 10:2-5</span></span></span></span></h3><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=853637234066123194&amp;postID=6058776372568253728" name="en-KJV-19204"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=853637234066123194&amp;postID=6058776372568253728" name="en-KJV-19205"></a> <span style="color: #5c1101;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">King James Version (KJV) <span style="color: black;"><b>2</b></span><span style="color: black;">Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. </span></span></span></span> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #5c1101;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><b>3</b></span><span style="color: black;">For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.</span></span></span></span></div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=853637234066123194&amp;postID=6058776372568253728" name="en-KJV-19206"></a><span style="color: black;">&nbsp;<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>4</b>They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.</span></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=853637234066123194&amp;postID=6058776372568253728" name="en-KJV-19207"></a><span style="color: black;">&nbsp;<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>5</b>They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.</span></span></span><br /><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">So here we have a tradition honored by Christians all over the world. Despite the fact that their bible calls it out specifically as being an incorrect practice. There are many others like it: </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Mistletoe: In the pagan tradition if you catch a lady under mistletoe you can pretty much have your way with her. In the “Christian” tradition you can just give her a kiss and she is not allowed to resist. I would say that is pretty self explanatory as to how it is not Christian. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The Yule log: An element of the pagan holiday “Yule” dates back to Vikings and Norseman. They would cut down the biggest tree they could find, drag it through the streets and light it on fire. They would use Holly to help keep the fire hot. The goal was to have it burn for twelve days. During those twelve days drunken orgies and revelry would take place, and every day a different sacrifice would be offered to their gods. Sometimes these sacrifices happened to be human beings. So consider that the next time your family lights up the “Yule log” to honor the birth of Christ. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;">“<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Deck the halls with bows of holly....fa-lah-lah-lah-lah, lah-lah-lah-lah...” </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;">“<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Toll the ancient yuletide carol....fa-lah-lah-lah-lah, lah-lah-lah lah...” </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The use of holly, wreaths, all of it is borrowed heavily from Pagan traditions, and has no basis in the bible at all. There is lots of information available about this stuff, and some if it is downright grizzly. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The character Santa Claus, is another one of the greats. His origins start out with the same fellow they were honoring when they were burning that log for twelve days. “Father Christmas” to some. He took on many forms. But at one point he also had a side kick that was known to be a horned demon named “Ruprect”. The horned demon would sometimes take off with the really bad children. The horned demon eventually evolved into the reindeer. Though they don't really talk about that part of it anymore.</span></span></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The fact that this entire story of Santa Claus basically re-enforces religion's tendency to scare people into behaving in whatever way the people at the top of that religious pyramid want them to, should be obvious. But it goes a bit deeper then that. We are taught to lie to our children about the existence of this being. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">One of the things I found ironic in the video is that since it was made by Christians whining about how the holiday they stole in the first place was not spending enough time emphasizing on Christ, was that those same people complained about this tradition of parents lying to their children about the existence of Santa Claus in an effort to control them. And that even if children are naughty or nice the kids still get the presents on Christmas morning.</span></span></span></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Hmm.... well I certainly agree with them. Lying about the existence of a being who punishes people for being whatever the church says is “bad” is pretty immoral. And I would say lying to someone about the existence of a being who rewards people for being “good” is pretty silly as well. Considering the fact that bad people prosper, and good people struggle constantly it would seem if there is such a being he has fallen asleep at his post. So sure, lying about Santa Claus is WRONG! It is a distraction for our children from the uh.... truth about that other guy we lie to them about! Oh yeah! GOD! </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">So people are for religious reasons very attached to Christmas. And one of the things that occurred to me when I was thinking about that took me back to a time I visited a church to get some extra food for my family when we were in need. Mind you, this church was actually a pretty cool place. Nobody was judging anyone. Everyone was gathering and having fun. What occurred to me though was that these people seemed to need an excuse to do this. It's like it kind of robbed them of the true reward for their generosity, which was the act of giving itself. They would say they were doing the “work of the lord” when in reality they should have been helping people in need because THEY wanted to. The Lord did not gather that food for them. The Lord did not spend the time giving it out. He did not provide any of it. It was the hard work of the people running that charity who brought that to the world. And they cheated themselves out of feeling that kind of well deserved satisfaction at doing something to help others. I caught myself wondering how many of them were doing what they were doing because they wanted to go to heaven? How many of them would still be doing it if they did not think it would get them into heaven? </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">I also remember the various charities who get together and ensure that the homeless get Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinners, which while I applaud, some of these people only do this kind of work on the specific holidays. As if the homeless don't need help the other 363 days a year. I also see people do each other favors or whatever they might not otherwise in the name of “well hey, it's Christmas...”. Like maybe they help someone get their car out of the snow. Or maybe they let someone keep the change from a transaction. Again, why do we need an excuse to be good to each other? And what is our excuse for NOT being as good to people the rest of the year? </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone behaved like they seem to think they only have to behave for Christmas? What if every day people went out of their way to help each other rather then only on these few religious holidays a year? THAT would be something. THAT would change the world. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">When I was young I remember the second job I had working as a dishwasher at a Pizza place. I worked really hard that December because I wanted to buy gifts for everyone in my family. And that is what I did. I was really excited to see the look on their faces when they opened them. I eventually became addicted to giving people things. When I became an atheist I did not stop giving people things. But I no longer needed an excuse. I gave people things because I enjoyed sharing something with someone that made them happy. I was free of any religious guidance for the giving of gifts. And to this day I still do that. I will see something that I know would mean a lot to a friend of mine or relative and get it for them. I do this throughout the year. I don't need any one special day to do it. And I don't need to stomp on anyone on Black Friday to pull it off. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">I feel the tradition of telling children that some mythical being known as Santa Claus gave them the gifts under the tree robs the child of feeling that connection with the person who actually gave them the gifts. And that is what it is, it is a connection between the person you are giving the gift to, and yourself. In that one moment you have reached out and enriched the life of another person with a selfless gift of your own. You also rob yourself. You are the one giving the gift, it should be a powerful moment between you and that person. Not them and another non-existent entity. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">To conclude the point about religion, I would suggest that when we give gifts for specific holidays in the name of beings who don't exist, we are basically making “sacrifices” to these “entities”. Is it the same thing as burning someone on the Yule log to keep Father Christmas happy? No. But you are sacrificing the real connection that man should have with man, absent any supernatural excuse. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">You are also sacrificing your own justly earned satisfaction out of doing something for someone when you credit it to the service of a being who for some reason is not around to help when it comes time to feed or clothe those in need. He seems to be around to take the credit though. Yet for some reason is never around to do the work. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">To segway into the next part of this, one of my favorite quotes I once heard from a child. It's really perfect when you consider it covers the economics and religion of Christmas in one statement: </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;">“<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mommy, why does Santa Claus like rich kids more then poor kids?” </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The dark side of social engineering has been seen by people who listen to my show, members of the Zeitgeist Movement and supporters of the Venus Project. It saturates every part of our culture. We live in a culture that was socially engineered to create people who are nearly religious in their pursuit of consumerism. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">There are so many social stigmas associated with giving people a “good Christmas” and all of them revolve in some way around money. The fellow I quoted above kept talking about how Christmas is the only day a family can “feel free” meaning that they somehow feel free on that day. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">I imagine in some families they might do a good job of convincing themselves of that. But the reality is that the consumer holiday creates all kinds of mental mayhem. One of my most vivid Christmas memories came from my early twenties. I was renting a room from someone who's family had invited me over to Christmas. Due to a car problem we were late. Eventually the guy's mother showed up, furious that we were not there on time. And I got to watch as an adult woman started physically assaulting her adult son in front of his wife and children for not being to Christmas on time. This might be somewhat of an extreme example. But I have seen the same thing play itself out over and over again to greater and lesser degrees in homes all around the country. A great deal of stress goes into ensuring that the holidays are “perfect”. I have watched families get into screaming matches about it. I have seen them go absolutely crazy over the turkey, ham, stuffing, or whatever other implements that you absolutely MUST have in order to be having a proper holiday where everyone is supposed to be getting together to enjoy one another's company. I have seen families go into a frenzy that eventually leads to fighting and all sorts of drama if any one of these implements is not utilized to it's full effect. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333;">“<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">DAMNIT! WE ARE RUINING CHRISTMAS! WE DON'T HAVE ANY STUFFING??? IF YOU HAD JUST DONE WHAT I SAID NONE OF THIS WOULD OF HAPPENED AND WE WOULD BE HAVING FUN RIGHT NOW!” </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The further pressure in the situation comes from having all the best gifts. This is generally enforced throughout our entire culture. Parents are not seen as good parents if they do not provide for their children a “Good Christmas”. So combine this with the already out of control fervor that false institutions such as fashion, novelty, etc and you have an orgy for the 1% at the top of the food chain. They have us trained to be good little consumer monkeys, and Christmas is if anything the ultimate culmination of all their hard work to get us to work hard to make them rich. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">The sheer lunacy of the situation takes some very hideous forms. </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Here are some excerpts from an article in “The New York Times” about shopping on Black Friday. The article is called: “Wal-Mart worker trampled to death by frenzied Black Friday shoppers...” </span></span></span> </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;"><b>By&nbsp;</b></span><a href="http://search.nwsource.com/search?sort=date&amp;from=ST&amp;byline=STEPHANIE%20ROSENBLOOM"><span style="color: #4f6c94;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><b>STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM</b></span></span></a></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The New York Times</i></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In a sign of consumer desperation amid a bleak economy, the annual rite of retailing known as Black Friday turned chaotic and deadly, as shoppers scrambled for holiday bargains.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A Wal-Mart worker on Long Island, N.Y., died after being trampled by customers who broke through the doors early Friday, and other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man. At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fights and injuries occurred elsewhere at other stores operated by Wal-Mart, the nation's leading discount chain, which is one of the few retailers thriving in the current economy.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile, two men at a crowded Toys "R" Us in Palm Desert, Calif., pulled guns and shot each other to death after women with them brawled, witnesses said.</span></span></span></div><div align="LEFT"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">While tussles and even broken bones are common when the doors open on Black Friday, this is apparently the first time someone was killed in the stampede. For some consumer psychologists, the mad scramble was a sign of the times.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">"I think it ties into a sort of fear and panic of not having enough," said Joe Priester, a professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and a former president of the Society for Consumer Psychology. A herd mentality, he said, can lead individuals to feel anonymous, so much so that they are capable of trampling someone. "Fear combined with the group mentality?" he said. "It doesn't surprise me at all."</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Walter Loeb, president of Loeb Associates, a retail consultancy, said there was shopping mania at Wal-Mart every year. But this year, he said, it seems "people are becoming irrational in their actions."</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">That seemed the case early Friday at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, on Long Island, where the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control about 3 a.m., and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.</span></span></span></div><div align="LEFT"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Witnesses and the police said the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, of Queens, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Some workers fought their way through the surge to get to Damour, but he had been fatally injured, police said. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau County police, called the scene "utter chaos" and said the "crowd was out of control." As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. "I've heard other people call this an accident, but it is not," he said. "Certainly it was a foreseeable act."</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like "savages." Shoppers' behavior was bad even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,' " Cribbs said. "They kept shopping."</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Outbreaks weren't restricted to New York. At a Wal-Mart in Columbus, Ohio, Nikki Nicely, 19, jumped onto a man's back and pounded his shoulders when he tried to take a 40-inch Samsung flat-screen TV to which she had laid claim. "That's my TV!" Nicely, 19, shouted. "That's my TV!"</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A police officer and security guard intervened, but not before Nicely took an elbow in the face. In the end, she was the one with the $798 television, marked down from $1,000. "That's right," she cried as her adversary walked away. "This here is my TV!"</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I did a little research on some other incidents on that day. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In another incident, a woman allegedly defended her two teenagers who were being physically assaulted by other shoppers when they were trying to acquire X-box game consoles by using Pepper Spray. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A child was shopping with his grandfather in another store in Phoenix when shoppers tried to strip a video game out of the hands of the child. The grandfather slipped the video game under his shirt so that people could not steal the game from the child. This resulted in police throwing the man on the floor on his head as they suspected him of shoplifting. His blood was pouring out of his head while his grandson watched helpless to do anything but try to explain to the police what had taken place while his grandfather lied unconscious on the floor. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Interesting that security was on task for protecting the merchandise but not the lives of the people who have been lost during Black Friday. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I ended up watching videos of various Black Friday riots, and that is really what they are. Riots. In many cases what you are looking at looks like people desperately trying to get out of a burning building. It's like a feeding frenzy. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So what does this mean? Where does it come from? Again, we are taught that if we don't give the best gifts we are not the best friends or family members. We are taught that our self image should be directly linked to this. I have seen the quality of Christmas being brought up in child custody battles, where the parent who can offer a “better Christmas” gets preferential treatment. It also is weighed in general, as parents who are more financially well off will be seen as “better parents” in the legal system. Even if the parents in question are not emotionally or mentally supportive of the children. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Children are of course put in an awkward position in situations like that, as they do want gifts. The advertising industry as shown in the film “Consuming Kids” knows this all too well and exploits it to create an almost insatiable thirst on the part of children for specific gifts. And that is further re-enforced at school where they are made fun of if they don't have the latest toys or fashions. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A great deal of businesses derive almost half of their profits from holiday sales. There are so many industries built around the holidays themselves including the decorations, and all other facets of these “holidays”. You see it when the holiday decorations for the next holiday are already on display before the food from the last holiday is even cold. They play music in the stores appropriate to those holidays to constantly remind consumers that they should be doing their “duty” to their family and friends by seeking to buy gifts for them. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">You are taught that the amount of money you spend on someone for these holidays is a critical measure of how much you care for them. You might literally feel guilty if you did not spend enough on them. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Big business pushes these holidays as they basically enslave the consumer cult masses to give them sacrifices on those days. Hallmark, the company known for it's greeting cards decided there was not enough holidays, and that apparently Valentine's day was not making them enough money so they created another holiday known as “Sweetest day” out of thin air. They did not even have to have a religious excuse. They simply guilt tripped consumers into the understanding that if you didn't get your significant other something on their created holiday that it meant you did not care about them. And fostered the idea that if your significant other didn't get anything for you on this day that it meant they did not care for you. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So what is it I am against? Am I against giving things to my friends and family? Am I against spending time with my friends and family? Am I against the “spirit of giving”? Quite the opposite. As I stated earlier I feel that the real spirit of giving comes from one person to another. That it should need no excuse. And that it should also not be an obligation. You are socially punished for not giving gifts during these consumer holidays. People are taught to believe you think less of them if you do not give them gifts on these days. And that in turn makes you even more obligated to give them gifts for fear of being thought of as someone who does not care. </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Personally I think the idea that I am obligated to give someone something means it is not a gift. Such a notion is actually more akin to settling a debt. Is that what giving is about? Is it about a debt I owe to the people I care about? Or should it be about the elation I feel when I make someone happy who has made me happy? </span></span></span> </div><div style="line-height: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.16in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So my suggestion is this. Don't wait for the holidays to show those you care that you care. Don't go out of your way to do so on the days the corporations have chosen for you. Because that means that you are only doing so as you are “obligated” to do so. Give out of your own sense of caring and devotion to the people in your life when you are ready to. And when you find something that would truly make them happy. Do as I did, and free yourself from the consumer cult practice that gift giving belongs to corporations. Take it back for yourself. And those you love.&nbsp;</span></span></span> </div>http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-with-v-radio.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-1284397730922343618Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:32:00 +00002011-11-01T21:32:41.941-07:00DetroitOccupyV-RADIO"Occupy Detroit" was cold, wet, and miserable. And I miss it already!<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uduqumOMuUE" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Occupy Detroit was cold, wet and miserable, and I miss it already!</div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">By Neil Kiernan A.K.A VTV</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> So I had a free weekend and decided to check out the “Occupy” movement in Detroit Michigan, about thirty minutes from my home in Chesterfield. It was cold, wet, and miserable. And I miss it already. I dragged some friends along with me Friday the 28<sup>th</sup> of October to check out the movement in Detroit. I got into some wonderful conversations and met some wonderful people. One of those conversations you can see on video here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uduqumOMuUE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uduqumOMuUE</a> or listen to the audio version here: <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/v-radio/2011/10/29/v-radio-at-occupy-detroit">http://www.blogtalkradio.com/v-radio/2011/10/29/v-radio-at-occupy-detroit</a>. After staying out as late as my friends wanted to I realized I needed to come back. So I came back Saturday ready to camp for the rest of the weekend. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I ran into some friends of mine from the Michigan chapter of the Zeitgeist Movement and they helped show me around. I volunteered to help with their general assembly, which was a great experience. I came there intent on reporting on what I saw and networking with fellow activists and I got a lot of great material. I was invited to participate in many of their meetings and have already realized that Occupy Detroit is going to be a second home to me. I only wish I could get out there more often. For the moment I have obligations at home that will prevent me from being there except on the weekends.</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> One of my goals when I decided to spend the weekend out in the frigid cold of crime ridden downtown Detroit was to try and get a feel for who was really there. What sort of people gave up their lives at home to live in a tent city in Grand Circus Park? If you were to believe the mainstream media it would be only people who fit the description of “lazy kids who just need to find a job...” After conducting a couple dozen interviews it was clear that this was not the case. Not that this surprised me. It never surprises me when the main stream media lies to cover up anything that might reflect poorly on their corporate masters. I took a lot of notes and wanted to share them with members of the Zeitgeist movement and listeners of V-RADIO. These interviews were conducted usually while standing outside in the freezing cold with a pencil and paper, but such is the life of the independent journalist. But it was worth it to touch base with these people. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> People like Robert. Robert is 52 years old. He worked hard all of his life in many jobs. But his final job was driving a truck for Steve's Van Lines. Eventually his company initiated a “lock out” telling the employees that they could not return to work without a 30% pay cut and loss of all health insurance benefits. He and his associates in UAW Union 243 fought this for over a year. And finally it ended with a buy out. He was unable to find more work and eventually along with many other Michigan residents lost his home and is now homeless. Though you would of never known it to look at him. This man did not fit the typical description or stereotypes of the homeless. He was articulate, lucid, and intelligent. And would absolutely love to go back to work. He told about how restrictive life is in the shelters he has to move in and out of. And that he does not see how anyone would ever choose to live that life. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Then there was Justin. 19 years old. He grew up in a low income situation, with no involvement from his father. His mother worked long hours and he barely saw her, so he was mostly raised by his grandmother. This fellow made a powerful impression on me. He was wise well beyond his years. And after talking to him he told me that he started caring about and following politics when he was about ten years old. The internet had a big impact on his socialization. He learned about Occupy Wall Street during a trip to Europe, and decided he needed to come home and be part of Occupy Detroit. I asked him about memorable moments from his time with Occupy and he mentioned the 1<sup>st</sup> general assembly as being a powerful occasion with many people from all walks of life banding together. He also spoke of the first major rain they had while living in the park and how despite the rain and cold he and his fellow activists toughed it out. Another moment he mentioned was when they had decided to move their “kitchen” from one side of the park to the other, everyone formed a line so that equipment could be moved hand to hand to the other side. It was a serious moment of cooperation and community as everyone came together to do what needed to be done.</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Then we move on to Todd. He shared with me that he came to the Occupy movement on his Birthday October 19<sup>th</sup> and had not left since. He said all he had ever asked for was world peace, and that his life in the camp was the closest thing he had ever seen to it. And that it was the “free-est” he had ever seen America. When I asked him about anything special that stood out about his experiences there he talked about how peaceful the camp was, and how everyone took care of one another. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Then there was Regina. She was raised by a single mother and was one of four kids. Her mother committed suicide during her childhood due to financial stress. Despite that she had been a successful business woman throughout much of her life. Owning and operating various small businesses, and re-educating herself every time these businesses failed. This happened about four times before the economy fell apart and she was unable to make payments on her car, which eventually lead to her losing it, and then shortly afterward her work, and then finally, her home. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The fellow I shared a tent with was named Jeff. Jeff grew up in a home where his parents were always two paychecks away from being homeless. But through all of that he managed to get an education and holds a masters in Mechanical Engineering. But now he is unemployed due to nobody really building anything in Michigan. He has applications in three different states and is willing to move for work, but nobody is hiring. He also shared with me the story of his parents losing their home. Both were hard workers all their lives and when the economy crashed so to did their ability to survive. He learned about Occupy Detroit literally by walking into the park and asking what was going on. When I asked him about memorable experiences he said one of the things that touched him was the visits that the Occupy Detroit was getting from elderly people who were protestors from the 60's who came to give their support. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> There was a gentlemen walking around with a sign that said “Ask me” so I did. His name was Steve. He came from a lower middle class family, in a single parent household, mostly raised by his grandmother. He has a Bachelor's in Sociology and works in wilderness therapy for troubled youths. He has been in Occupy Detroit since it's inception. He commented about how much he loved the strong sense of community in the camp and in the Occupy movement in general. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> One of my more memorable conversations was with a man named Terry. Terry came from a family of eight children. Both of his parents worked hard at Chrysler throughout his childhood and they never went hungry but they were also always on the edge of struggling. Terry was plagued by problems with his insulin that would cause Diabetic seizures. These seizures are becoming steadily more and more frequent and severe, and despite being completely lucid and physically able to work even at the ripe age of 53, companies will not hire him because he is considered to be a liability. There quite literally is nothing he can do in the area. He learned about Occupy Detroit when they came into the park taking pictures of it as a possible site for the Occupy protests. He helped design the layout of the tent city and works diligently to help keep the place safe amidst the homeless and dispossessed of Detroit. His Parents were very excited that he became involved, his father being a Viet Nam veteran. When they learned of his involvement they donated two tents for his efforts and helped him with whatever he needed. He said the greatest thing about the work he was doing was that he felt for the first time in his life that he was really part of history. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Another highly memorable person I met was Lucianna, a nice 30 year old girl who despite her small stature seemed to be highly effective in the daunting task of patrolling the tent city along with other members involved with the volunteer security. Throughout the weekend I watched as she fearlessly stood up to people twice her size as needed to calm down any tensions that might of risen among the occupants, some of which were homeless people suffering from mental illness or too much alcohol. She mentioned her first major memory was the first direct action they did in the city. She watched as the police mobilized to try and contain the huge crowd that had gathered to march and it suddenly dawned on her just how big this thing she had become involved in was. She is very dedicated to her role of protecting the camp and taking care of everyone there and seeing to their safety, and she has some great people working with her. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> To speak on the “vibe” of the situation is something difficult to put into words. I would say the first word that comes to mind is “profound”. The melding pot was so diverse. There was so much diversity of race, and backgrounds. There was a real sense of family among people who if asked three or four years ago if they had ever pondered camping in the middle of downtown Detroit would of laughed and thought that was silly. When work needed to be done for the community, people came together and got it done. If there was a violent incident due to the typical situations that come up in the ghetto that is Detroit the entire community responded to it with empathy and a clear head. I grew up in the worst parts of Pontiac Michigan and I have never felt as safe in a rough neighborhood as I did there. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The facilitation process was a system for consensus decision making that seemed to work pretty well. They devised a system of hand signals so that people could voice their feelings on a situation without all needing to talk at once. There was a real dedication to be sure that everyone was heard. And while it could be frustrating at times because if many people were participating it could be a slow and arduous process. But overall that frustration seemed to be worth it. It felt good when consensus was reached, as you could feel good about decisions that were made knowing that everyone was on the same page. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The accusations that the “Occupy” movement was disorganized and unfocused were proven to be absolutely bogus. I watched as groups of people came together for meetings without any previous agenda, they developed the agenda, reviewed and approved the agenda and then moved forward. Even if nobody who showed up for the meeting was at the previous meeting, they were able to continue to make progress on any and all projects that needed work. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> It has now been a couple of days since I have been to the tent city that was my home away from home for three short days, and I can't get over the desire to go back. There was something about that place that was more “home” to me then I have felt in a long time. I encourage you to get involved in an “Occupy” near you. And I am proud to be part of “Occupy Detroit”. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div>http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/occupy-detroit-was-cold-wet-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)1Grand Circus Park, Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48226, USA42.3367075 -83.05089659999998742.3358325 -83.052412099999984 42.3375825 -83.049381099999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-2811942695303937207Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:43:00 +00002013-12-18T11:08:55.009-08:00Revealing "Revealing Talk Radio"So a few days ago I got an email from a network claiming it wanted to add V-RADIO to it's roster. The email had the look of spam mail but I decided to reply to that email agreeing to have a phone call with the person in question. So yesterday at 10PM ET I&nbsp;received&nbsp;a phone call from someone saying they are from "Revealing Talk Radio". I am generally up at 10PM however I did find it odd to&nbsp;receive&nbsp;a phone call at such a late hour from someone supposedly representing a real deal internet network. Apparently he thought I was on Central time. I have no idea where he would of gotten that idea. Nor would 9PM generally be an acceptable time for a business phone call at someone's home anyway. But that aside.<br /><br />The conversation that followed was a blend of pressure sale and confident speak that some salesman use to make it look as though they know far better then you do and you should just do what they say. I tried to explain to him that I have had plenty of&nbsp;experience&nbsp;in the field with people attempting to do what he was describing. And that it has always failed. He cut me off repeatedly and then finally suggested that we would talk over all the details during a phone call today. And that any questions I had would be answered then.<br /><br />The phone call today consisted of me bringing up concerns I have and asking for direct answers. His reply was that I should of read his website, and it would of answered all of my questions. And that since I had not, he was no longer interested. He then hung up. So I went to his website and saw some of the most absurd prices for the service he is offering I have ever seen. Including asking hosts to pay $250 for one show a week that you could do every day on Blogtalkradio for 35 bucks. Or for free on Talkshoe. With a limit of two hours to the one hour he was offering. Or you could pay him the low low price of $500 to do a daily show that you could also do for 35 dollars on Blogtalkradio or for free on Talkshoe. (Blogtalkradio also pays revenue sharing benefits to it's users. In other words, you make money for having your show there. Though it is generally modest it is well worth it so it generally pays for itself.) There were a few small amenities that he offers with his service but nothing at all that would be reflected in the absolutely absurd prices he was asking.<br /><br />He later told me that he would be allowing me to be on the network for free. But that he would be charging other people. After how I was treated by him on the phone, and after looking at the prices he was charging for a service you could very easily get for free on other established networks, I could not see even wanting to be part of such a project.<br /><br />In the emails that followed his rude phone call I then exchanged emails with him that are still ongoing but they mostly consist of him stating that he dislikes that I thought he was rude, but at the same time saying he apparently had every right to be as I should of researched his product on his website.<br /><br />I have always said that proponents of internet talk radio should stick together, and that is why I am writing this blog to inform people about "Revealing Talk Radio" and offer my advice after being a successful internet radio host with over 220,000 listens to date. Do not pay for what you can get for free, or inexpensively. Do not allow yourself to be bullied or pressured by anyone who claims to be trying to help you when they are not offering you anything that you cannot get for free and free of any hassles from rude individuals who seem to think we need his network when we can accomplish everything he is trying to accomplish at no cost to ourselves and a little work.<br /><br />If ANYONE out there would like help setting up their own radio show at little to no cost even if your content is not related to what my show is about I will be happy to help you for the sake of encouraging alternative media.<br /><br />And I promise not to be nasty to you for failing to read details on websites I never asked you to read. :)<br /><br />This effort looks like a poorly thought out business model at best, or a scam at worst. My advice, stay away.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/revealing-revealing-talk-radio.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-3855557956517909284Fri, 22 Apr 2011 18:02:00 +00002011-04-22T11:08:27.009-07:00Misean "Calcuation Problem" debunked.&nbsp;Note: This article is in reference to the socialist vs capitalist debate, so it doesn't completely apply to TVP vs Capitalist. However, it kind of smashes the economic calculation argument (theory) that we are being told we need to solve and demonstrates how flawed it is. <br /><br />&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cvoice.org/cv3cox.htm">Taken from here.</a><br />PRELIMINARY CRITICISMS OF THE MISESIAN MODEL<br /><br />At first blush, the ECA would appear to be highly plausible. However, on closer inspection we can discern hairline fractures in the very foundations of this model which render it highly vulnerable to sustained criticism. Let us consider some of these defects first before turning our attention to the organisation of production and the allocation of production goods in a socialist economy.<br /><br />A) Subjective valuation and price<br /><br />According to Mises and the Austrian School of Economics, the value of goods and services is necessarily subjective and does not inhere in the good or service in question; economic costs are essentially subjective, opportunity costs and utility preferences can only be expressed along an ordinal scale – i.e. ranked – as opposed to a cardinal scale which entails precise measurement. How then do we arrive at the necessary data upon which a system of economic calculation is predicated? Salerno puts it thus. The problem with socialism, he claims, is that it lacks “a genuinely competitive and social market process in which each and every kind of scarce resource receives an objective and quantitative price appraisal in terms of a common denominator reflecting its relative importance in serving (anticipated) consumer preferences. This social appraisal process of the market transforms the substantially qualitative knowledge about economic conditions acquired individually and independently by competing entrepreneurs, including their estimates of the incommensurable subjective valuations of individual consumers for the whole array of final goods, into an integrated system of objective exchange ratios for the myriads of original and intermediate factors of production. It is the elements of this coordinated structure of monetary price appraisements for resources in conjunction with appraised future prices of consumer goods which serve as the data in the entrepreneurial profit computations that must underlie a rational allocation of resources.”4<br /><br />But what is actually happening in this “transformation process” whereby the “incommensurable subjective valuations” of individuals purportedly come to be expressed as objective exchange ratios or prices? Do the latter in fact actually capture the former? There is a kernel of truth in the claim that they do in that obviously if someone is willing to pay a price for a good he or she must ipso facto subjectively value that good. Otherwise the “willingness to pay” for it would not have arisen. But, of course, in a market economy mere “willingness to pay” is not enough; the means of payment – purchasing power- is what is crucially required and it is only willingness to pay that is backed up by purchasing power that actually affects prices. This is what economists call “effective demand” (presumably to be distinguished from “ineffective demand”). The subjective valuation that a pauper places on a square meal may be considerable but in the absence of the wherewithal to pay for such a meal, this counts for nothing. In short, the subjective valuations individuals place on goods cannot reasonably be said to be captured or embodied by the objective prices such goods attract in the market. Indeed, one might add that to suggest that they do, flatly contradicts a key myth of bourgeois economics – namely, that our wants are essentially “infinite” and the resources to meet them, limited.<br /><br />It may be objected that while it does not aim to “quantify” our wants as such (along a cardinal scale), price does nevertheless reflect our subjective valuations insofar as it sheds light on our preferences (along an ordinal scale). Thus, if we prefer roast beef to a McDonald’s hamburger this will be reflected in the higher price we would be willing to pay for such an item. However, this still does not get round the basic problem: in a market economy you cannot express a preference if you do not have the means to do so: purchasing power. You might prefer roast beef but after consulting your wallet may discover to your consternation that you will just have to resign yourself to the hamburger instead. While, according to conventional economics, effective demand determines price in conjunction with supply of the goods demanded, this effective demand is itself grossly unequally distributed by virtue of the unequal distribution of income. Austrians respond to this by arguing that such differentials reflect the valuations individuals place on different occupations and the different contributions they make to society (which “society” duly “rewards” them for) but there is no way of testing this claim since such valuations are themselves subject to the limitations of “effective demand”. Salerno’s “integrated system of objective exchange ratios” (prices) reflects or is conditioned by, this unequal distribution of effective demand. Thus, frivolous luxury goods can be “valued” more highly – i.e., attract a higher price – than food for the hungry because a rich elite has vastly more purchasing power at its disposal to competitively bid for, and so push up the price of, the former compared to the latter.<br /><br />We should bear these points in mind in considering the merits or otherwise of the ECA; it is based on so-called objective data that are fundamentally biased or skewed and cannot be said to correspond truthfully to the subjective valuations of economic actors in the market as claimed. To believe otherwise is to commit what is called the Fallacy of Composition – the illusion that what is true for each part of a whole must be true for the whole It is an error that overlooks the interrelationships between the different parts of the whole.<br /><br />B) What do we mean by “costs”?<br /><br />D R Steele contends: “The total cost of producing anything is the total effect in reducing production of other things because of the factors used up. This what we mean by the ‘cost of production’. It is this that we always want to minimise when we produce anything”5. As we saw earlier, this definition of cost equates with opportunity cost. Opportunity costs are often counter-posed to accounting costs . The latter are usually taken to denote the explicit costs represented by the cash outlays that a firm makes in purchasing its inputs, whereas the former are associated with implicit or hidden costs and may be difficult or impossible to quantity, or even be completely unknown. For example, the opportunity cost of spending more money on a new school may be to forego spending this money on improving the local ambulance service which could have meant more lives being saved. But just how do you weigh up the cost of a life?<br /><br />Going back to our example of consumer good X, we can see that the ECA relies on the notion of accounting cost rather than opportunity cost, despite its copious lip service to the latter. This is because it involves comparing the explicit cash outlays to be made on different combinations of A and B to arrive at a notional “least cost combination”. Certainly there is an opportunity cost in making that decision – this almost goes without saying – but this is not what this example of economic calculation is about. It is not measuring what a factory foregoes in opting to produce 1 unit of Y using method 2. Choosing a least cost combination of factors has essentially to do with accounting costs, not opportunity costs. That being so, one might well ask, how does this help one to calculate the “total effect in reducing production of other things because of the factors used up”? Acknowledging there is, theoretically speaking, a “total effect” is not the same as saying that this is what is being precisely measured – or, indeed, that it can ever be precisely measured. Moreover, who decides which is the “best alternative foregone”? One person’s preference may not be another’s. Such considerations are simply brushed under the carpet by the ECA.<br /><br />Nevertheless, it is on the point of “precise measurement” that the ECA presses its claim. As Steele points out: “In this case, it so happens that it would be sufficient merely to know which was ‘more’ or ‘less’ but that is just an accident of the way I have set up the example. Generally, we should have to know exactly how much more or less. For instance, if the choice were between a method using 4lbs of rubber and 5 pounds of wood and a method using 5 lbs of rubber and 3 pounds of wood, it would not be enough to know that wood were more costly by weight, then rubber; we should need to know how much more costly”6.<br /><br />Certainly, accounting costs are amenable to “exact calculation” using monetary prices but the question is what exactly is being accounted for in the process?. “Precise measurements” doesn’t tell us much; a game of monopoly entails precise measurement too but nobody suggests this implies some earth-shattering insight we would be foolish to overlook. What then is the significance of what is being precisely measured using monetary prices?<br /><br />The ECA asserts that a socialist economy would be unable rationally to chose between different combinations of factors to arrive at a least cost combination. In answer to the obvious retort that a socialist economy would not concern itself with costs in this monetary form, it might be contended that there will still be a need to reckon costs in some other guise and that it is precisely these substantive costs – or if you like, “real world” costs – that the price mechanism is able faithfully to represent via its pattern of objective exchange ratios. But how could this be proven.? To prove this is the case one would have to demonstrate a precise correlation between these “substantive costs” and their monetary representations. One can determine whether such a correlation exists only by measuring one against the other. But that presents a problem for the ECA since, in doing this, one would have inadvertently shown that costs can indeed be independently measured, and rendered calculable, without recourse to market prices.<br /><br />This places the proponents of the ECA in a invidious position since failure to demonstrate a putative correlation between these substantive costs and their alleged market representations means that all they have to fall back on is a tautology: that only a market economy is able to perform economic calculations couched in market prices. Steele himself has attempted to circumvent this argument with the (specious) claim that it is “parallel to arguments which have frequently been levelled against general theories. Thus every year or so some new genius discovers that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is vacuous, because it says that the fit survive, but there is no way to measure who are fit except by seeing who survive”7. But, of course, the analogy is completely inapt; the relationship between “fitness” and “survival” is a causal one which simply does not apply in this case. What is involved here is nothing quite so grand as a “general theory” but a modest proposition concerning the alleged statistical correlation between two sets of data without causation being invoked in any way.<br /><br />Finally, if the ECA is really about narrow accounting costs rather than opportunity costs as such then presumably we have a solid basis for testing the proposition that a system of market prices can faithfully calculate the costs incurred in production decisions. Here we are referring to “costs” in their positive sense, not opportunities foregone. It is evident that in this sense, market-based calculations are far from adequate. There is an enormous literature on the problem of externalities and spill-over effects which illustrates this point very well. Suffice to say that in a competitive market economy there will always be an obvious in-built incentive for competing firms to externalise their costs as far as practically possible or to the extent to which they can get away with doing this. Pollution costs are one example of this and typically necessitate some intervention by the state to impose curbs on the offending firm in question in the interests of other firms who may have to indirectly pick up the tab. “Social costs” are another example. A firm may consider it necessary to lay off part of its workforce to reduce its production costs and remain competitive. However, this reduction of its labour costs has costly repercussions for the workers involved and society in general which tend not to be accounted for on the firm’s own balance sheet.<br /><br />Attempts to get round the problem of externalities and spill-over effects through the application of concepts such “willingness-to-pay” (WTP) and “willingness-to-accept” (WTA) are problematic and provide little, if any, comfort for proponents of the ECA. WTP has to do with what people would be prepared to pay to mitigate or avert some undesirable effect while WTA refers to the level of financial compensation they would be willing to receive for having to put up with such an effect. Mainstream economists tend to regard the costs involved in both instances as roughly equivalent but there is considerable evidence based on surveys to suggest that this is simply not the case – not according to people’s “subjective evaluations” of environmental losses and gains, at any rate.8 In fact, environmental losses tend to be more highly valued than environmental gains even where similar sums of money are involved. There are a number of other problems associated with these techniques (e.g. the tendency to underestimate the value of future resources; the problem of non-use values and option values which are to do with resources that you do not yourself make use of or might only do so at a later date) all of which highlight the shortcomings of market valuations, shortcomings which the ECA tends to gloss over.<br /><br />C) The problem of “net income”<br /><br />According to the ECA not only is there a need to discover the least cost combinations of inputs required to produce a given good; there is also a need to ensure that the revenue obtained from the sale of this good is sufficient to cover the cost of producing it. This can only be done by attaching prices to a firm’s inputs (A and B in our example) as well as its output (good X).<br /><br />“Net income” is the difference between a firm’s revenue or proceeds and its costs. Positive net income is what is usually referred to as profit; negative net income, as loss. As Mises put it, “Every single step of entrepreneurial activities is subject to scrutiny by monetary calculation. The premeditation of planned action becomes commercial pre-calculation of expected costs and expected proceeds. The retrospective establishment of the outcome of past action becomes accounting profits and losses”9.<br /><br />This statement is revealing. It inadvertently highlights a serious flaw in the ECA. The ability to compute profit and loss is what in theory is supposed to ensure the efficient – that is “profitable” – allocation of resources. But it turns out that it ensures nothing of the sort. Just because a system of market prices affords one a set of figures with which one can perform precise calculations does not mean that these figures will turn out to be correct – that is to say, will unerringly guide the entrepreneur towards a positive net income.<br /><br />As Steele puts it: “Since all production decisions are about the future and the future is always uncertain, decision makers have to make guesses, take gambles, play hunches and follow their experienced noses.”10 and “In the market, entrepreneurs anticipate, speculate, agonise, guess and take risks. They also frequently perform elaborate calculations, aware that the results of such calculations are only as good as their assumptions. Always enveloped in a cloud of ignorance, market decision-makers strain to discern the indefinite contours of the changing shapes that loom ambiguously out of the fog.”11<br /><br />This seems unambiguous enough but then, curiously, Steele feels prompted to ask: “Does the fact that production is actually guided by estimates of future prices, and not by reading off ‘current’ (recent) prices, destroy the force of the Mises argument? Apparently not, for two reasons: 1. past prices are a guide which helps people to make more accurate (though still fallible) estimates of future prices; and 2. people’s estimates of future prices are eventually confirmed or refuted. There is an objective test of the accuracy of the estimates: profit and loss.”12<br /><br />Steele’s first point rather undercuts his previous claim that production cannot actually be guided by current (recent) prices and he does not quite seem able to make up his mind on how relevant the latter are. By his own admission, entrepreneurs can and often do get things spectacularly wrong when relying on current /recent prices – the energy crisis of the 1970s being a case in point. It is also to be noted that these current/recent prices are a record of accounting costs, not opportunity costs, and so do not shed much light on the opportunities foregone in making a production decision since the latter are a “tacit reference to hypothetical future income”13 which can only be guessed at. He admits that entrepreneurs are fallible yet does not seem to see the inconsistency in admitting this and claiming that the price system ensures “exact calculation”.<br /><br />Steele’s second point – that there is an objective test of the accuracy of entrepreneurial estimates – is presumably the more important one but, even so, holds no water. Remember that what we are looking for is some way of reliably guiding the entrepreneur to make sound production decisions concerning net income in the future – otherwise there would be little point in going on about the need for “exact calculation”. The fact that the market process is retrospectively “self-correcting” in eliminating or bankrupting those firms that err (incur an economic loss) in their future estimates is completely irrelevant. The resource allocations these firms committed themselves to constitute what economists call “sunk costs” and cannot be retrieved once made. Bygones, as the saying goes, are bygones. More importantly, there is no guarantee that those entrepreneurs, having had the good fortune to estimate future prices accurately, will continue to do so. We are emphatically not talking about some selective process at work here which incrementally refines the abilities of entrepreneurs generally to make sound economic judgements which Steele seems to be implying. If this were the case then the history of the market economy would manifest itself as a progressive reduction in uncertainty and risk.<br /><br />On another matter, when Steele refers to profit and loss as an objective test of the accuracy of estimates of future prices one presumes he is using “profit” here to mean accounting profit or net income. However, this is a little confusing. This is because he also uses the term “profit” in another, more specialised, sense as well. The entrepreneur’s return on her capital, he contends, is called “interest” (or what we would normally called profit) and where this is equal to her accounting profits “there is no profit in the strict economic sense. True profit is a return above interest; loss, a return below interest”14. The irony is that such profit can only arise where the economy departs form the abstract model of perfect competition and optimal resource allocation. As Lachmann observes “profits are earned whenever there are price-cost differences; they are thus a typical disequilibrium phenomenon”15. Thus , according to the free marketeers’ own theory of how the market behaves, the very imperfections which they deplore (such as monopolistic tendencies) “are, in fact, key profit-generating dynamics in the economic system. In other words, market imperfections are the main source of profit in the economy”16. Such profit, as Steele points out, is the result of the entrepreneur outguessing the market and benefiting society in the process. Presumably, such benefits would not be forthcoming in the idealised (and completely unrealistic) competitive model of the free market which free marketeers strive to realise and that what is needed instead is a less competitive model in which price distortions are allowed more free play. But that, of course, undermines an important assumption of the ECA about the need for market forces to be given free rein in order to ensure the “accuracy” of market prices.<br /><br />According to the ECA, in the absence of market prices that allow entrepreneurs to make profit and loss computations, economic efficiency cannot be assured. This, it is argued, is incompatible with the maintenance of a developed economic infrastructure. However, we have seen just how problematic such profit and loss computations are in the real world despite the evidence of a developed economic infrastructure around us (which the proponents of the ECA themselves delight in pointing out and attributing to the market). This suggests that there must be something seriously awry with the theory itself.<br /><br />In any event, the claim that a socialist economy would need to be able to calculate “net income” in some sense does not stand up to close scrutiny. The notion of “net income” in fact derives purely from the functional requirement of capitalism to realise profit through market exchange – that is, it is system-specific. Certainly, this requires inputs and outputs to be reduced to a common denominator – to facilitate comparison and thereby ensure that when one commodity is exchanged for another, they are equivalent to each other. Indeed, market transactions necessitate such equivalence. However, it does not follow that this kind of comparison making use of a common denominator would be required in a socialist economy. In such an economy, “economic exchange” of any sort would no longer apply. It would not be necessary to determine whether “more” or “less” wealth in general was being created than was being used up in the production of that wealth for the very simple reason that the concept of wealth “in general”, a completely abstract and crudely aggregated notion of wealth, is of no practical use in itself and would be utterly meaningless outside the context of commodity exchange. This emphatically does not mean that a socialist economy will have no way of ensuring that resources would be efficiently allocated (which I will consider later); it simply means that such an economy does not need to operationalise this wholly unsatisfactory notion of “net income” in order to achieve this efficient allocation.<br /><br />D) Estimating the negative effects of misallocation<br /><br />Mises was clearly adamant that socialism could not be realised because it lacked any method of rational calculation. The implication of such a claim is that the effect of not having such a method would be so devastating as to prevent socialism from ever being realised. However, as Bryan Caplan points out, this flatly contradicts Mises own opinion that “economic theory gives only qualitative, not quantitative laws”17. According to Mises in Human Action (quoted in Caplan), “economics is not, as ignorant positivists repeat again and again, backward because it is not quantitative. It is not quantitative because there are no constants”. But if that is the case, how could you quantity the negative effects of this supposed misallocation in a hypothetical socialist economy and come to the conclusion that they were so severe as to make socialism infeasible?<br /><br />The Misesian argument would appear to rest on the claim that while there is only a finite number of options concerning the use of inputs that would lead to their efficient allocation, whereas there is an infinity of options that would result in those same inputs being misallocated. The chances are that without the means of making economic calculations, decision-makers in a socialist economy would chose one of the latter options. As Mises put it, economic calculation “provides a guide amid the bewildering throng of economic possibilities. It enables us to extend judgements of value which apply directly only to consumption goods – or at best to production goods of the lowest order – to all goods of higher orders. Without it, all production by lengthy and roundabout processes would be so many steps in the dark … And then we have a socialist community which must cross the whole ocean of possible and imaginable economic permutations without the compass of economic calculation”18.<br /><br />However, as we shall see later, a socialist economy would be quite capable of avoiding this fate through the institutionalisation of a set of constraints that steer decision makers towards the efficient allocation of resources. In any case, Mises’ claim about the lack of a reliable compass to guide these decision makers might as well be directed at market capitalism. This is what can be inferred from the Theory of The Second Best formulated Richard Lipsey and Kelvin Lancaster in 195619. Looking at the “general equilibrium” model of the economy, they argued that in order for equilibrium (pareto optimal allocation) to obtain a number of equilibrium conditions need to be simultaneously satisfied such as the supply of all goods being exactly equal to the demand for them, the output price of goods being equal to marginal cost of producing them and the long term profit for all firms being equal to zero. Where just one of these optimal conditions is not met then the ‘second best’ position can only be reached by departing from all the other Paretian conditions. To put it in a nutshell, any single price distortion leads to all other prices being distorted because of its ramifying consequences for exchange ratios throughout the economy and since price distortions are inevitably going to arise in the market, capitalist decision makers will likewise have to contend with whole ocean of possible and imaginable economic permutations in which their ability to perform precise calculations using market prices will be to little avail. This is because such prices, being distorted as it were, will almost by definition be unable to provide a reliable guide (in terms of price theory). Of course the notion of a “general equilibrium” is merely an abstraction and has no empirical basis in fact. While Mises acknowledged this he did not seem to perceive the devastating consequences that this had for his own theory of “economic calculation”.<br /><br />The implication of Mises’ argument is that the more scope one allows for the free interplay of market forces the more efficient and reliable the allocation process. Can this claim be empirically tested? It is often argued for example that so-called free market economies perform better than their more interventionist, state capitalist, competitors. But this can be for any number of reasons other than “economic calculation”: differences in natural and labour resource endowments, the prevalence of natural disasters, historical circumstances (e.g. civil conflict), the incentive problem in oppressive regimes (a point that Caplan makes) and economic dependence (a reference to “dependency theory” and the argument that the already developed First World systematically “under-develops” the Third World). There is a further problem of disentangling cause and effect. For example, is it the case that relatively successful economies are successful as a result of implementing free market policies or are those policies themselves the result of economic success? Those economies that are more competitive are likely to be more favourably disposed towards free trade for the obvious reason that they have little to fear from competition, whereas, conversely, less competitive or economically successful economies will tend to want to adopt a more protective and interventionist approach to protect their own interests. Indeed this is what enabled Germany, at the end of the 19th century to overtake Britain in terms of industrial production: Whereas the latter was still relatively laissez-faire in its outlook, Germany and other continental economies at the time relied heavily on tariffs and other interventionist measures to build up their industries.<br /><br />Empirical support for the economic calculation thesis is thus remarkably weak. In any case, there is not, never has been and never will be such a thing as a strictly “free market” economy in the real world. In the real world, the market necessarily operates closely in tandem with the capitalist state, varying only in the degree to which this happens. As Karl Polanyi has noted: “The road to the free market was opened up and kept open by an enormous increase in continuous, centrally organised and controlled intervention”20.<br /><br />E) The costs of economic calculation<br /><br />What is often overlooked is that accounting, while it might concern itself with cutting costs, is itself a significant cost. This has important implications for the ECA. Parallel to a system of physical accounting (see section 5) what we have today as well is a system of monetary accounting. Monetary accounting is a highly complex process in which all enterprises in a capitalist economy must of necessity engage, even though it plays a supernumerary role as far as the physical process of organising production is concerned. In earlier class-based social formations money played a secondary role in the economic life of society; in modern capitalism, however, its influence is all-pervasive. Its purpose is not to ensure the efficient allocation of resources as such but to expedite market exchanges by providing a universal equivalent against which all other commodities exchange, so enabling the computation of profits and losses by competing actors engaged in these market exchanges. That is why it eventually supplanted the traditional system of barter – because of the obvious structural shortcomings of the latter which impeded market exchanges. For example, you cannot swap your pig for two chickens from your neighbour if he or she already has an ample supply of pigs; paying your neighbour in cash overcomes this problem.<br /><br />As well as enjoining economic actors to engage in monetary accounting, the development of capitalism gave rise to a whole plethora of institutions and economic activities directly or indirectly concerned with the handling and circulation of money rather than the production of use values as such – for example, banks, insurance companies, pay departments, building societies and so on. Indeed, this already vast and steadily proliferating sector of the economy is a natural outgrowth of the systemic needs of an economic system centred on the competitive accumulation of capital; such institutions and activities arose precisely to service those needs. One might want to argue that a bank, for example, performs a useful role in that it lends money to a factory and thus enables the latter to manufacture useful things that consumers in a market economy may value. Therefore, banks perform no less a useful role than factories in the production of these useful things. But this is to engage in a sleight of hand; it is to overlook the distinction that needs to be made between the specific conditions under which a factory has perforce to operate within a given socio-economic system and the physical process of production itself. It is the former that is precisely being questioned which proponents of the ECA, on the other hand, take wholly for granted and assume is seamlessly linked to the latter. That is to say, they assume what they need to prove: that you cannot operate a modern system of production without market prices (and hence those kind of institutions – like banks – linked with market exchanges in capitalism).<br /><br />It is the elimination of such activities and institutions , essential though they may be to a functioning market economy but unproductive in themselves from the standpoint of producing use values or meeting human needs, that constitutes perhaps the most important (but by no means only), productive advantage that a socialist economy would have over a capitalist economy. The elimination of this structural waste intrinsic to capitalism will free up a vast amount of labour and materials for socially useful production in socialism. Just how much resources will be made available for socially useful production in this way is a moot point. Most estimates suggest at least a doubling of available resources by comparison with the present.21 Yet the proponents of the ECA, while claiming that socialism would sink into the slough of inefficiency and falling output without the guidance of market prices, seem wilfully determined to deny socialism this particular productive advantage that it has over capitalism by positing the necessity for institutions such as banks – or some analogue of banking – in a socialist economy. This is a specious claim; it is unwittingly reading into socialism the functional requirements of capitalism.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/misean-calcuation-problem-debunked.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-5968219162807439333Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:47:00 +00002011-04-15T06:49:14.165-07:00The Zeitgeist movement is not going anywhere.<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Seriously people. Calm down. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Recently there have been some disagreements between Peter Joseph and the Venus Project. And now my research on the “TROLL” documentary gets more data in the form of all of the people spreading hysteria that this will mean that the movement will somehow fold. I am going to be blunt about this. This quite simply, is nonsense. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Peter Joseph helped the movement a great deal with research, making great movies, and providing some good guidance. But he was not even involved with the vast majority of the day to day work of the movement. He rarely attended meetings, and does not generally get involved with any of the working aspects of the movement itself. The chapter coordinators, moderators, etc. handled all of that. And while this obviously means that there won't be anymore films coming from Peter about the Venus Project, it does not suddenly mean the sky is falling. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Virtually every function of the movement was already being run by other people. Peter has stated he will continue to fund the global movement's work. Which is highly generous. He is not leaving the movement. He is just stepping back from any form of spokesman role. This does not by any means that he is no longer an activist for this direction. But the newsletter, chapter coordination, etc. was all already handled by other people anyway. And those people did not suddenly cease to exist. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Peter was never the leader. Despite propaganda to the contrary. And everything I point out above was part of that. He would share his views just like everyone else. He of course had some authority over the website that he pays for and administrates, but it's not like he called up every chapter coordinator and gave them directions or “orders”. It's not like he wrote every single newsletter article. It's not like he did all of the planning and the speaking. He was already asking us to step up more as he was going to be backing away before any of this. Because he needs to. He needs and deserves a break. And the reality is that if Peter stopped doing anything in the movement for a month, the average member of the movement would not even notice. You know why? Because Peter Joseph was not the movement. So much work was done by other people behind the scenes. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I am asking people to stop contributing to the hysteria. Stop posting links to these trolls videos. They are having quite the laugh at our expense. And your giving them a reward. If people do post these videos then explain to them that this is NOT the end of the Zeitgeist movement. Share this blog post with them. Right now the trolls are trying to cause a panic in the movement. It is important that people understand that the movement is not going anywhere. So Peter backs away for a while. Does this mean that suddenly everyone who saw his films doesn't feel the RBE is the best solution? Obviously not. <br /><br />I absolutely appreciate everything Peter has done. And will continue to support his work. I look forward to his upcoming film about the impact of war.&nbsp;</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I heard the website is down. If you guys want to talk about this stuff my forums are open at V-RADIO.org. And yes, I am still doing broadcasts. And yes, when you wake up tomorrow, there will still be a Zeitgeist Movement. &nbsp;</div>http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/zeitgeist-movement-is-not-going.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-1528521159221835019Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:41:00 +00002011-04-07T10:23:35.892-07:00A realistic look at the economic calculation problem.<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A realistic look at the economic calculation problem. </div><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">By Neil Kiernan</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The economic calculation problem is at the core of debate between free market advocates and socialists. And because a Resource Based Economy suggests distribution of resources to people absent a price tag we find ourselves not only being labeled socialists, but the same arguments being leveled at us that are leveled at socialists. So we have the economic calculation debate. At it's core is the question:</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Will we be able to efficiently distribute resources absent the price mechanism?”</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">First lets get some background on the positions of the Austrian/Free Market school of thought and then talk about how this relates to our own arguments on the subject. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So how does the price mechanism supposedly function insofar as distributing resources? </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The idea behind the price mechanism is that in in the market resources will be given a value by the market. This value would be calculated based on the cost of production which includes resources expended and labor. And then finally consumer demand. The theory is that if a producer of a given product charges too much for that item then no one will buy it. Hence forcing the producer to lower the cost. Competitive forces also play a part here as rival producers of a given product will vie for dominance in the market by offering competitive prices. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So breaking this down into an analogy:</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Bob produces widgets. Bob calculates a price based on the cost of the resources that were used in making his widgets, including how much he had to pay his employees at the widget factory. He of course wants to make a profit so he charges a price that is above and beyond the costs involved in production. If he gets too greedy then people instead may buy a rival product that has a lower price. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So Mises and the other Austrian economists basically contend that this is the most efficient way to distribute resources. And in fact is the only way that would actually work. Lets get into why. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">From Wikipedia:</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=853637234066123194&amp;postID=1528521159221835019" name="cite_ref-Mises_0-2"></a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises">Ludwig von Mises</a> argued in a famous 1920 article "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" that the pricing systems in socialist economies were necessarily deficient because if government owned or controlled the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production">means of production</a>, then no rational prices could be obtained for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_goods">capital goods</a> as they were merely internal transfers of goods in a socialist system and not "objects of exchange," unlike final goods. Therefore, they were unpriced and hence the system would be necessarily inefficient since the central planners would not know how to allocate the available resources efficiently. This led him to declare "...that rational economic activity is impossible in a socialist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth">commonwealth</a>." </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And:</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Without money to facilitate easy comparisons, socialism lacks any way to compare different goods and services. Decisions made will therefore be largely arbitrary and without sufficient knowledge, often on the whim of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucrat">bureaucrats</a>.” </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But what about the inefficiencies in the price system? Just how good of a job does it actually do when it comes to efficiently distributing resources? Lets take a look. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Mises suggests that no rational prices can be reached without a price system. But are rational prices actually reached within a price system? No. The reason? The entire price engine is driven by the profit motive. And profit by no means depends on rationality. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">First of all, lets talk about advertising. Advertising has evolved over the years into what amounts to outright brainwashing. They specialize in ensuring that consumers have irrational desires for products that they do not even need. Or are even harmful to them! The work of Edward Bernays in assisting the cigarette companies in their quest to give women the irrational desire to smoke is an example I have frequently brought up on V-RADIO. Documentaries such as “Psywar” and “Consuming kids” really dig deep into the very dark reality of advertising and it's ability to target our minds in a way that causes us to feel “needs” for objects that have no rational purpose. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One such industry is the fashion industry. A never ending cycle of convincing people that unless they wear certain clothing, (and more specifically are willing to pay a higher price for it) they are worth less as a human being. The $3,000 hand bags mentioned in “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” are just one of many absurd fashions that resources are devoted to. A company named Louis Vuitton will also be happy to sell you a shoulder bag for $8,000. A pair of sneakers for $1,000. Or a belt for $3,000! The price mechanism has attached to it elements of social stratification. This brings us back to the reason that Air Jordan shoes that were purchased at Foot Locker were somehow more valuable then those purchased at K-Mart. Solely because the person could afford to pay the price. It was therefore more fashionable. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The fashion issue goes beyond clothing. Accessories. Cars. Houses. Etc. The entire system is designed to tell people that the higher price paid the better. But we are not talking about the higher price paid meaning the better the product. We are talking about an industry that convinces people that the higher price someone paid the more value someone has as a person! Psychological and Sociological research is done by advertising firms to plug their products into our self esteem, our attractiveness to the opposite sex. And our status within society. If your carrying a $8,000 shoulder bag then it means you are superior on a fundamental level to the person carrying a $30 shoulder bag. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The price system is subject to corruption in other ways. Planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence of goods is also built into this system to ensure that people are forever in stores moving inventory. Products are made to break down or to not be easily fixable intentionally for the sake of profit. The price to fix a given product is set in such a way to artificially make it more expensive to simply repair an item then it is to buy an entirely new item. The price system creates the motivation to do all of this contradictory to the ecological and environmental impact of such wanton production. Because it is a system for an economy with profit as the motivator producers of given products are encouraged to find as many ways to cut corners as much possible when it comes to ecological safety of their products. Products are made without recycling in mind because a product that is easy to take apart to be recycled is in many cases easy to repair. This would allow the consumer to simply repair their products rather then buying new ones. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The price system because it is based solely on the whims of consumers also permits the production of goods completely irrespective of the long term effects of using up given resources. The consumer at the counter of a store does not consider, nor are they encouraged to consider the long term implications of their purchases. What will buying all these plastic products do to the environment? What if this useless junk I am purchasing has resources in it that will be required for mankind's survival? What impact will the fact that I purchase a new I-Pod every year have on my grand children? Or their children? None of this is taken into account in the price system. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Because you want to be able to offer your goods at the lowest possible prices the price system also encourages worker exploitation. Wal-Mart's goods made in sweat shop factories can be offered at a far lower price then products produced locally. And the profit motivated price system will only serve to perpetuate this. Outsourcing to more and more desperate economies where people are willing to accept a lifestyle no better then conventional slavery. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another example of corruption of the price model is when businesses collude to sell a vital product at an ever increasing price. Take the oil industry. The oil companies formed a cartel to cooperate on what the price of gasoline should be. They agreed to compete by no more then a few cents at the pump. The benefit of this is that profits in all of the oil companies collectively went up to record heights. It was to the benefit of everyone in the cartel to see this happen. And because gasoline is not an optional commodity they were able to get away with it. It was not as if the consumers could simply choose not to drive to work. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A further proof of the price mechanism's failure is that outside of the stores that sell these products there are often homeless people lying on the street. People who could feed themselves for MONTHS if they had even a quarter of the money spent on a single item purchased at the prices above. When it comes to a system of allocating resources the billions of people starving on this planet are a testament to the absolute failure of the market system to give any option to these people. There is no mechanism in the market or the price system that will distribute resources to these people despite the fact that technologically we could provide for them. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When attacking any centrally planned system, the Austrian economists point to examples such as the various instances of mass starvation supposedly created by centrally planned economies. They point to death camps and gulags as the inevitable solutions of failed centrally planned economies. That when scarcity exists we will be forced to somehow depopulate. Of course they leave out that a great deal of these death tolls were created by fascist regimes trying to stay in power. But they go on to heap praise on the market system with it's price based economies with an absence of death camps and gulags. They leave out of course that even in the free markets there would still be huge pockets of poor and starving people. The “death camps” of the market system are places like Africa. Where hundreds of thousands of people starve every day. The price system has no place for people who cannot find ways to be useful to people who have more. Basically, suggesting that centrally planned economies lead to starvation ignores the blatantly obvious truth that the market system does the exact same thing. But far more insidious is that the entire time people are inclined to think it is a fair system that is leaving all these people to die. And even encourages people to think that it is somehow their fault for dying. If they just worked a bit harder or started their own business they would be fine. They sell everyone the pipe dream that they too can be rich and famous if they just apply themselves. And this delusion helps everyone agree to be part of a system where 1% of the population has 40% of the wealth. And where statistics are greatly against people who are not part of that 1% ever becoming part of it. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's ironic that the same incident of the rules suddenly changing in the book “Animal Farm” that was supposed to be a story about communism applies just as well to people living in a capitalist system. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“All animals are equal. But some animals are MORE equal then others...”</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Mises and his disciples stated that centrally planned economies fail due to the fact that the resources would be distributed according to the “whims” of bureaucrats. And that apparently instead we should allow resources to be distributed according to the “whims” of consumers. Consumers who's “whims” are being controlled by a profit motivated system. If we were talking about a world of infinite resources this might work. But as was demonstrated earlier, the “whims” of consumers in a profit motivated world are not by any means rational. And the fact that there is anyone anywhere who on a whim will buy an $8,000 shoulder bag while people are starving outside of the store they purchased it in is testament that the price mechanism is not efficient at all. And that “rational” prices are not being achieved. There is nothing rational about an $8,000 hand bag. Period. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So lets look at the obstacles that Mises and Hayek suggest we will never be able to overcome. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The knowledge problem: Will we be able to effectively get the information we need as far as the needs of our consumers within a society? Mises seems to think that this is an insurmountable problem. That we will never be able to get enough information to be able to make rational decisions about what to produce. This like many other Austrian theories is obviously way out of date. Information technology is vastly superior to anything that Mises would of even conceived of in the 1920's when he said this would be impossible. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The other notion that is presented by Hayek is that people would have no incentive to share information they have. Which simply does not make any sense. Obviously in a resource based economy the incentive is we want to eat. We want shelter, clothing, etc. So we share that information so that the system works. </div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another argument against Austrian economists from Wikipedia:</div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“It has also been claimed that the contention that finding a true economic equilibrium is not just hard but impossible for a central planner applies equally well to a market system; As any Universal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Machine">Turing Machine</a> can do what any other Turing machine can, a system of dispersed calculators (i.e. a market) has no in principle advantage over one central calculator.</div><br />Austrian economists emphasise that a central planner cannot have access to all the necessary information (including local conditions, know-how and changing individual preferences) to feed into such a central calculator.”<br /><br />As I have already illustrated earlier the price mechanism has many failures and is far too open to corruption. So they were never operating from any sort of superior system to begin with. As pointed out above there is no special advantage to mankind operating as a mob of people making economic decisions based on whims. And the claims that any centrally planned economy would fail due to lack of information is based on a completely out of date idea as far as what information any central planner would have access to. <br />The idea that desires are infinite or irrational:<br /><br />This concept basically works on the assumption that people's desires are infinite and are not trackable or understandable. And this assumption is flawed. The needs of human beings are in fact calculable. And in fact once all of the noise that has polluted the “desires” of mankind is gone, (advertising, fashion, etc.) deciding what to produce will be far easier. The reason it is hard to calculate now is because mankind has an inflated idea of what it “needs” that is based largely on the conditioning we are given through advertising from the earliest ages. This entire industry of convincing people to consume things they do not need will vastly change the amount of resources expended. I have already felt this myself as my own consumption habits have changed once I became aware of the vast propaganda machine that was put in place to make people believe that the act of consumption in of itself was an expression of freedom. I watch now as people chain themselves to debt for endless amounts of junk that is designed to be sure to fail as soon as it is paid off. My entire perspective changed on what I buy and why. There is no reason the rest of mankind will not experience this as well. <br /><br />So what is different between what we suggest and other “centrally planned” economies? <br />Well first of all, all of those systems advocated force or coercion to achieve their goals. Every one of those systems were run by people who did not understand the environmental impact on human behavior. They relied on laws, prisons, etc. to deal with the inevitable problems that arise from circumstances of scarcity. <br /><br />Secondly, and more importantly the points that Mises and Hayek used to point to failings in those systems do not apply to ours. There are no “whims” being used to decide the allocation of resources. All of those systems were microcosmic attempts at human opinion based central planning. As pointed out previously it was at the “whims” of bureaucrats. And no such whims will exist in our system that is based on the scientific method. Every citizen of the society would be acutely aware of the state of resources on our planet and the implications of their consumption. <br /><br />Thirdly, the technology available to us is vastly superior to what was available at the time that any of these monetary thinkers were contemplating their limitations. <br /><br />Even without the modern technology we have today this was achievable. In early 1970 the government of Chile asked a British operations research scientist named Stafford Beer to develop a system for tracking information all over the country for the purposes of a computer controlled economy. The system was highly advanced for it's time and did work. It was called Project Cybersyn. When I was doing research on it I was not surprised to see that several conservative bloggers have made really bogus reports as to it's success. But without fail people who were actually involved in the project came forward and refuted the nonsense that was being portrayed. Chile had decided to nationalize it's copper production. In typical “economic hitman” fashion the United States didn't like that very much and eventually went out of it's way to cause problems for the socialist Chilean government. The following is from one of the accounts of someone involved in the project: <br /><br />“Across Chile, with secret support from the CIA, conservative small businessmen went on strike. Food and fuel supplies threatened to run out. Then the government realised that Cybersyn offered a way of outflanking the strikers. The telexes could be used to obtain intelligence about where scarcities were worst, and where people were still working who could alleviate them.(ref Andy Beckett/Guardian)<br />The interconnected telex machines, exchanging 2,000 messages a day, were a potent instrument, enabling the government to identify and organize alternative transportation resources that kept the economy moving.”<br /><br />Because of project Cybersyn, the Chilean government was able to keep their economy running using a fraction of the resources previously demanded. And the strike that was an attempt to get rid of the president who had the audacity to think that Chilean copper should be used for the people of Chile failed. <br /><br />I am hoping to get someone who was involved in this project on V-RADIO at some point. But suffice it to say, with some ancient telex machines they were able to keep their economy moving. And that technology is dwarfed by the capabilities of our information technology now. More complex versions of Project Cybersyn's style of cybernetic management are already being used by blue chip corporations all over the world to maintain their own infrastructures. <br /><br />In conclusion, it is important to remember that the Austrian school of economics and the opinions of Ludwig Von Mises are not infallible. They represent limitations that are set by men who have limitations in their understanding of the capabilities of technology. Those limitations are inherent in mankind as technology always manages to exceed our expectations. The Wright brothers were making flying machines while the intellectuals of the day were being paid to write books about why man would never fly. It is important to understand when your dealing with people who are advocates of this school to remind yourself that the Austrian school of economics is a fringe philosophy. It is not embraced by the majority of economists and is in fact rejected as a mainstream school of economics because of the attitude in the philosophy of throwing one's hands up in the air and letting everything just play out what way it may. “It won't work because Mises said so!” is not an argument anymore then continuing to quote the physics experts who said man would never fly would be a viable argument today. Something to consider when people are quoting Mises as if they are quoting something empirical and infallible:<br /><br />"<span data-jsid="text">‎Mises wrote of his economic methodology that "its statements and propositions are not derived from experience... They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts."</span><br /><br /><span data-jsid="text">So in other words. He made it up. This is why Austrian theory is rejected by the mainstream.&nbsp; </span><br /><br />During my presentation during the Agora conference I used the analogy of a space ship. When a space ship is going on a prolonged trip there is no free market economy set up on board to determine how the resources on board will be used. They are calculated by scientists on the ground before the vessel ever gets underway. Though mankind lives on a really big spaceship we call earth, the more our population grows and the more our technological capability to impact our environmental conditions the “smaller” the earth effectively gets. In a situation of limited resources allowing the “whims” of anyone to determine resource allocation would not only be dangerous. They would be suicidal. And the danger of anyone “owning” those resources exclusive to themselves with a profit motive as a factor would be obvious. Nobody should have such power. You wouldn't let anyone own all the oxygen on a space ship you were on. The oxygen should be considered the common heritage of everyone on board.<br /><br />In the end I have noticed a trend while debating these topics. People don't want to consider that they might not be free to buy whatever their hearts desire. The market system and it's price mechanism allow people to continue to look at resources as something that will always be at the store waiting for them. They see people like us pointing out these limitations and they project that we would want to enforce some limitations on them. They fail to see that no matter how free they believe they are if there are only six ounces of a given resource left on the earth they don't have the right to take seven. Not because we are going to force anything on them. But because there are only six ounces left. And if great care is not taken in the use of those limited resources nobody will have access to them.<br /><br />Then there is the very real issue of the "Golden Billion" effect. A theory&nbsp; that points to the fact that the "Western world" is consuming resources at a rate that far exceeds the rest of the world. It is through imperialism that we have maintained this circumstance of a few privileged countries gaining all of the benefits of civilization while we loot resources out of any country that might wish to use it's own resources to better itself and the standard of living of the people in it. In an article called: "A clash of civilizations: A possibility?"&nbsp; by David Bryan he describes this issue:<br /><br />"Under the once popular “golden billion” theory, people living in the economically advanced European nations, Japan and the United States enjoy in full measure the fruits of civilization at the expense of their less lucky brethren sweating elsewhere in the world. These days this “golden billion”, is being increasingly diluted by a steadily widening influx of migrants coming in from the Third World which means that we are now talking about a considerably larger number of “privileged” ones whose comfortable existence the rest of the world may no longer be will to ensure. Which may also mean that we are in for a new redrawing of the global map say, by China, which is working so hard to get rich and is already setting its sights on global leadership."<br /><br />The people you see who are addicted to the lifestyle that they have brainwashed themselves into believing is "fair" are trying desperately to ignore the fact that we cannot hold on to 40% of the world's resources in the hands of a small percentage of the population forever. And we can only keep that hold through imperialism masked as "Making the world safe for democracy..." There are not enough resources for everyone on the planet to live the wasteful lifestyle of the average American. World wars have always been the means by which these struggles for dominance have been waged. From the Roman empire to WWII. And with technology getting more and more dangerous we are now looking at destruction on a scale never seen before.<br /><br />Mankind has to rise above this idea that fighting for the position of dominance in the world economy is acceptable. We need to rise above the idea that any one nation should be better off then the majority of nations. The reality is that the lifestyles that we enjoy in the 1st world are not due to the magic of the market system. The entire system is upheld through imperialism. And the rest of the world is not going to put up with that forever. The market system spreading to such a global scale would either A. set the stage for an apocalyptic WWIII or B. drag the standard of living of everyone on the planet down. The market system hinges on the idea of equal opportunity. And there quite simply is no equal opportunity for the entire world to live the wasteful selfish lifestyle we do in the west. The resources do not exist for this to happen. But a society designed using the scientific method to come to rational values, strategic access of goods, and an egalitarian approach can provide a great lifestyle for everyone. <br /><br />The price mechanism is no more based on rationality then a bureaucracy arbitrarily deciding how resources should be expended. And neither the whims of bureaucrats in a centrally planned economy nor the whims of consumers in a price mechanism profit motivated economy are sufficient for adequately deciding how resources should be allocated on a planet with finite resources. We don't as a species have the freedom to use resources irrespective of what impact it will have on the earth we all live on. And that is why we must use the scientific method for social concern if we are going to survive.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/realistic-look-at-economic-calculation.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-3246765551354243051Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:43:00 +00002011-03-23T09:47:48.625-07:00It's just a game.A review of the soon to be released documentary film "Returning Fire<br />Interventions in Video Game Culture" by Professor Roger Stahl. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://1.gvt0.com/vi/RbrlNNR8Puk/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RbrlNNR8Puk&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RbrlNNR8Puk&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><br /><br />Professor Roger Stahl is someone I am glad to call my friend. His work on the documentary film and book “Militainment Inc.” really helped me to open my eyes to the reality of how our culture here in the United States and in many other countries we are continually bombarded by war as a form of entertainment by the media. Through his work I was able to realize the realities of such terms such as “Techno Fetishism”. That is the idea that we can actually look at weapons of war as beautiful. I spent a lot of time on Air Force bases growing up as my older brother was an Engineer working for the United States Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio. I remember very clearly looking at the various planes as things that looked “cool” and contemplating on how the A-10 Warthog was my favorite because of the destructive capacity of the main cannon mounted on the front of the plane. I remember in those days all I wanted to be was a fighter pilot. My walls were covered in promotional posters of various fighter planes my brother would bring home for me. In retrospect I remember that all of these posters also had the names of the various corporations that made the planes in question. I used to be able to list them off. McDonnel/Douglas, Boeing, etc. I knew which company made each plane. <br /><br />I also remember my various toys. G.I. Joe was highly popular at that time and I recall the reverence I treated my “Cobra Raven” bomber jet with. I took it everywhere with me and I remember quite clearly my mother's complaints about having “that monstrosity” (It was a very large toy) on her coffee table while I was sitting in the living room watching the G.I. Joe cartoon. The funny thing about all of these memories though is that I had largely forgot about them until I watched Professor Stahl's film “Militainment Inc” and had the privilege of having him on V-RADIO. <br /><br />When Jacque Fresco talked about how we are formed by our early environment, I decided to go on a journey into my past by going back and watching the movies I watched when I was very young. And one of them in particular I had watched shortly after watching “Militainment Inc.” and right before my first interview with Roger, a film called “The boy who could fly.” Now, the only reason this film is relevant to this particular article is the main heroine of the story had a little brother who was extremely militarized in his focus. He wore camouflage all the time. His room was decorated with nothing but G.I. Joe, he had virtually every action figure and vehicle. Hell, even his big wheel (Small plastic tri-cycle) was the G.I. Joe version. When re-watching this film I remembered distinctly being in huge envy of that kid's collection when I was a young boy watching that film. I remember when wearing camouflage was actually fashionable. <br /><br />And I remembered the cold war. I remembered watching “Red Dawn” with my family and how we would play “Guns” or “Army” with toy guns and one side would be the United States, and the others of course would be the “evil” Russians. I remembered how when I was in school they would give you these forms to fill out to tell the school system what you might be interested in being when you grew up and I put military on every one. I had my whole life planned out. Was going to graduate, become a fighter pilot, and then afterward the only other interest I had left from my childhood pre-militarization was to fly the space shuttle. To be an astronaut. Thanks to the combination of the media, my toys, etc. all of my other thoughts of what I wanted to be when I grew up kind of faded to the way side. <br /><br />A lot of things happened to me during my time in high school that I at the time figured were bad luck. The school I went to was highly overcrowded and in a very low income area of Pontiac, Michigan. Metal detectors on the doors, school shootings fairly prominent. I got involved in a rock band and my musical mentor was an older fellow named Tyrone Scott. He had a love of guitar and playing chess. So he took me to the public library, where there was often a large number of homeless people who were rather good at chess. They were also largely Viet Nam veterans. I sat getting to know these people and got a very real dose of what the end of the road looks like after a military career. Suddenly my attitude about joining the military started to change forever. There was nothing glorious about being homeless and forgotten and spending time in a public library not because you wanted to read, but because it was warmer in the library then it was outside. And you could play chess for free. <br /><br />Roger's work on “Militainment Inc.” came to me at a time when I was already becoming more aware of just what had been done to me and most of my generation. But it added a whole new dimension to what that meant. And after 911, I realized we didn't have the Soviet red scare anymore. We had the terrorists. And the war was not cold anymore. But the media's approach to it made it look like more of a video game then reality. After watching that film I never looked at the TV news the same way again. And it contributed a great deal to why I don't watch it at all anymore other then in select clips on YouTube. And why I don't intend to expose my kids to it either. But that of course brings us to the natural progression from Roger's first film to his new one. “Returning Fire Interventions in Video Game Culture”. I was grateful when Roger gave me access to a sneak preview of the film so that I could review it for our upcoming show about the film. And I am going to share my feelings on it here and why I feel this film is another must see for anyone who wants to understand the war propaganda machine and the dark place humanity is headed if we continue to desensitize ourselves to the reality of war. <br /><br />Professor Stahl tells three stories in his film. If I had any criticism it would only be that I wish he had done more. I was engrossed from beginning to end and found myself motivated to look into more examples of the sort of activism the three people he interviewed for his film had engaged in. Two of the people in question did various provocative things while logged in to two popular first person shooter games. Including the extremely obvious recruiting tool known as “America's Army” a free online first person shooter put together by the U.S. Army. In watching the stories I remember thinking to myself that there was a time that I could have been one of the players in the games in question.<br /><br />The first story revolved around an internet activist named Joseph DeLappe who logged in to “America's Army” with the name of “Dead_in_Iraq”. As people spent hours clicking away and shooting at the virtual avatars of other people he would list off the names of dead soldiers who had died in Iraq, along with the dates of their deaths. The reactions he got were mixed and I won't spoil the film for you, but I do wish to take one compelling point that came up when the brother of one of the soldiers he listed off while playing who had died in Iraq went out of his way to stop him from using his brother's name. The two ended up debating on a radio show about it. The brother of the dead soldier said that this activists actions were in some way trivializing the death of his brother. The activist countered with the very powerful point. The fact that there is a game wherein you play a United States soldier and are frequently killed over and over and over again is trivializing the death of his brother. And every soldier who dies in war. The fact that such a tragedy could be part of a “game” in of itself was a trivialization. <br /><br />One of the powerful points that was also brought out in this segment was that these games go out of their way to try and capture the realism. I remember very distinctively in the past actively seeking out war games based on this. But as Mr. DeLappe pointedly stated, there is a serious element of realism that is always left out. That would be the fact that when you get shot in war you are often maimed for life, and spend the rest of your life dealing with the VA, and being in a lot of pain. If you survive. In real life, you don't get to respawn in a few seconds. And this recruiting tool of course doesn't have a segment of the game where you are being pushed around in a wheel chair for the rest of your life, or the glory of becoming part of the statistic of being 1 in 4 of the homeless in the United States, or watching your own funeral wherein your loved ones are mourning you and they hand one of them a folded American flag. Any video game that featured this part of the soldier's career would not be a good recruitment tool for the army. And it certainly wouldn't sell a lot of video games. <br /><br />In the second segment we move on to an interview with Anne-Marie Schleiner. She was part of the former internet activist group “Velvet-Strike” which made quite a ruckus on various servers for the popular first person shooter “Counter-Strike”. Ms. Schleiner and her fellow activists would log on to “Counter-Strike” servers and use the game's ability to spray your own graphics into the game to put anti-war messages all over the virtual battlefield. A couple of things struck me when I was watching this segment. The first was the reaction that her group of activists from the community within the game that was in some cases extremely negative including death threats. One hate mail in particular came from someone who had watched the twin towers burn during the September 11th attacks who used the game “therapeutically” to get the sensation that he was getting back at the terrorists who carried out the attacks on the twin towers. The final line of the email that hit me the hardest was the person saying “Please don't ruin my game.” <br /><br />I have a roommate who played more “Counter-Strike” then any human being should ever do anything. I remember him coming home from work stressed out and angry at people and going into his room and shooting people to get out their aggressions. I remembered doing the same thing myself with video games while I was working on the fast food industry which can be a highly stressful and frustrating job. This lead me to truly appreciate one of the major concepts that both “Militainment Inc.” and “Returning Fire” try to convey. And that is that these video games allow us to distance ourselves from the conflict. To make it “normal” to shoot people. And to dehumanize people who are killed in war. The whole thing reminded me of a very old episode of the original Star Trek TV series wherein they came to a planet that had been in war for thousand's of years. And the reason was that they had decided it would be more humane to wage war via a computer simulation. People who died in the simulation would voluntarily go and disintegrate themselves if they were listed as “killed” during these simulations because it had been determined that they would of died if the combat were real and that it was better for their planet as a whole to do this rather then wage real war. Their society had become completely detached from the bloody and grizzly aspects of war. This again brought me back to considering the vast difference in the way wars are covered now. As pointed out in “Militainment Inc.” the differnece between the way the Viet Nam war was covered and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is staggering. No pictures of wounded soldiers. War becomes video screens of bombs being dropped on buildings that are shown on low quality video so as to be blurry. Rather different then the video of an Apache gunship shooting people on a street corner released by Wikileaks. It allows us to forget that there are real people with real lives who had real families and real friends who were blown to pieces in those video clips. <br /><br />The third and final segment was certainly the most powerful, but it was also different then anything I had ever seen. And it kind of brought this last comparison I made to that Star Trek episode very much to the forefront of my mind. The segment about an Iraqi artist and activist named Wafaa Bilal. His father was killed by a missile fired from a Predator drone in Iraq. What many people don't know is that these drones are often operated by pilots who are thousands of miles away from the action here in the United States. Totally disconnected from the action. I learned about that while watching a lecture by Professor Robert Sapolsky, one of the behavior experts featured in “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” when he was talking about the vast differences between the way that animals make war and the ways mankind does in this currently sick system. As war becomes more mechanized, it becomes less real, and more “clean”. And therefore easier to ignore. <br /><br />The story of Wafaa Bilal was certainly one of the most unique activism stories I had ever seen. Inspired by the remote control means that was used to kill his father, Mr. Bilal fashioned a remote control paint ball gun that people on the internet could fire at him. For the project he locked himself in a room for 30 days allowing people to make the decision to shoot at him, or not shoot at him. His original name for the project was going to be “Shoot an Iraqi”. I again don't want to get into too much detail as you will get a far greater impact by watching the film when it comes to this story. But suffice it to say by the time it was done, something as absurd as someone rigging a paintball gun to be fired at them via the internet was not funny at all. One thing I will mention was during the segment Mr. Bilal was featured on a talk radio show hosted by Mathew “Mancow” Muller. The reason I am going to mention it is I hope someone shows this particular radio host my blog so that he can read the words here wherein I will describe the image of my middle finger being extended at him. The plus side of that part of the film is that it reminded me of one of the most important reasons that I am helping make the “TROLL” documentary. The fact that people actually make money be being extremely poor examples of humanity on purpose is intellectually offensive. If you want to know why I say this, watch the film and you will understand. However, there was a heart-warming end to this segment wherein some internet activists took action. <br /><br />In conclusion I will wrap up by saying that “Returning Fire” is a must see for any anti-war activist. I think it should also be viewed by any parent considering buying their children a video game about war. I think anyone considering joining the military should watch both of Professor Stahl's films before they make their final decision so that they can get an idea for where their motivation to join the military likely came from. As I said earlier I only wish the film was longer. And I look forward to any further works by Professor Roger Stahl. <br /><br />TO ORDER A COPY OF THIS FILM PLEASE VISIT:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&amp;key=152">this website</a>.<br /><br />About Roger Stahl:<br />Roger Stahl is Associate Professor of Speech Communication at the University of Georgia. His work has appeared in publications such as Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Encyclopedia of Political Communication, and Critical Studies in Media Communication. His latest book, Militainment, Inc.: War, Media, and Popular Culture, has just been released by Routledge Press.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/its-just-game.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-5901239864708517617Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:43:00 +00002011-03-09T17:43:12.054-08:00Al from Mexico's article for V-RADIO 3/9/2011.The transition is "my transition".<br /><br />It makes me kind of angry when I hear many people asking about the "transition"<br /><br />How is that going to be?.....when will the transition begin?.....who is going to<br />lead the transition?........the transition........what should we do to<br />accelerate the transition?<br /><br />People often get caught up in the confusion of "perhaps something will happen<br />right?", I mean, somebody needs to do something"....."maybe something big is<br />about to happen", maybe someone stronger than us will come to the rescue, let's<br />keep waiting, let's keep praying, let's keep on having faith, let's just keep<br />pretending and looking the other way until suddenly out of the blue things get<br />better.<br /><br />Thanks to the monetary system we've been using for centuries, we have come to<br />the conclusion that we are powerless, defenseless, voiceless, mindless, to a<br />very profound level.<br /><br />We tend to forget that every change, every transition, every revolution, every<br />new invention, starts with only one person...And that person is YOU.....You are<br />the transition.<br /><br />So if you want to accelerate the transition, break those credit cards, cut them<br />all in a hundred pieces like I did a few years ago, I grabbed the scissors and<br />practically shred them to ashes. I finally learned to be in control of my life,<br />and it felt so good to get rid off the banking chains that enslaved me for over<br />10 years.<br /><br />And of course, we could talk about many other actions that would harm and weaken<br />the system, such as making your own clothing and manufacturing your own home<br />products and foods, we could go really far as to how much we can do to get off<br />the grid.<br /><br />But we don't need to scare away many people that are still extremely attached to<br />the goods they think they need in order to be "happy".<br /><br /><br />So going back to the credit cards and loans issue that we can actually get rid<br />off today, we can do so much damage to the current system, because they depend<br />on credits and loans in order to justify the phantom value they have invented.<br /><br />We dont even need to force it, is already happening around the world, more and<br />more people find themselves unable to pay the interests from their loans<br />therefore they are constantly educating their kids about the dangers of getting<br />in debt.<br /><br />Therefore we can actually accelerate the transition by just that single concept<br />of getting off the credit mechanisms, because the entire system relays and<br />depends absolutely on having you as a monetary slave.<br /><br />Without debt governments can't control you, without debt nations can't bring<br />other nations to their knees, without debt this whole aberrant system will<br />collapse sooner than we think. Without the need of an old fashioned armed<br />revolution and without having to spit a single bullet.<br /><br />You could keep on buying stuff from wherever you want, you can keep on<br />pretending and dreaming that things will somehow get better with hope, you can<br />also live upset and depressed about everything, spending 90 percent of your time<br />working as someone else's slave and spending only 10 percent for yourself and<br />your family.<br /><br />But if you keep your credit cards in your pockets, you'll remain miserable,<br />you'll keep your family in constant uncertainty and fear ... deprived of all the<br />things you could have, and all the places you could go if you finally learn to<br />have absolute control of your finances.<br /><br />We cannot be redundant enough on this issue Neil, money is debt, money depends<br />on debt to exist, because money is a phantom value system of exchange, that<br />relays on your ignorance in order to keep you as a slave.<br /><br />We live stuck and deeply attached down to the few possessions we own, because we<br />feel that we need to protect them from others, we deprive ourselves from having<br />healthy meals because all we can afford is fast, high collesterol cheap foods to<br />keep us going.<br /><br />We haven't yet realize how deep in the mud we are at this point in time because<br />of our absolute dependency on money, people kidnapping and killing other people<br />for money, people selling drugs and sickening others for money, doctors<br />prescribing deadly medicines for money, corporate leaders throwing thousands of<br />tons of toxic waste in the rivers and oceans to save money, fishermen using mile<br />long fishnets destroying coral reefs and hundreds of thousands of whales,<br />dolphins, turtles, seals, sharks and everything in their way for money.<br /><br /><br />Companies getting sued, harrassed or kicked out if they try to create products<br />that can last twice as long as their counterparts in the competition for money.<br /><br />The list goes on and on and on, and money keeps on destroying humans, animals<br />and the very soil we step upon. To most people all this problems seem kind of<br />"impersonal" , all those things are happening to "someone else" to "something<br />else", as long as a soldier doesn't break in our house we can keep our fucking<br />mouth shut and keep watching the football game and then the soup opera.<br /><br />It seems as though people have become so lazy minded that they will protest and<br />stand up only if the bullet hits them directly.<br /><br />Perhaps until they see their own teenager daughter getting sexually abused on<br />the internet, because the poor girl couldn't find a decent paying job to fill<br />her economic needs, so she decided to try her luck in the pornographic industry,<br />filled with human degradation, physical and verbal abuse, drug addictions and<br />finally depression or suicide.<br /><br />Or perhaps that isn't hard enough to wake people up to realize the sickness of<br />our current society worldwide, maybe until one of their kids gets kidnapped to<br />be used in the child pornography industry which exists also in the richest<br />countries and which generates hundreds of millions of dollars every year.<br /><br />Or maybe when their soldier son comes back from overseas inside of a coffin, and<br />then realize that he lost his life to maintain the privileges of those in power.<br /><br />Or maybe when they realize that their kids weren't allowed to move on to<br />College, because their grades are so mediocre for having lazy mediocre teachers<br />that can't be fired from schools for having the protection from the teachers<br />union.<br /><br />Or better yet, your kids are given a full month vacation, again because there<br />was another local school shooting spree were many students died.<br /><br /><br />And then Another church priest, and another wall street broker runs away with<br />the lifetime savings of hundreds of naive retirees and entire families.<br /><br />And then another teenager girl dies, trying to look as slim as those starving<br />drug addicted models on the magazinne cover.<br /><br />And then another truck delivery driver crashes and kills a bunch, because he<br />didn't sleep in 2 days feeling the pressure of getting the shipment on time.<br /><br />Thousands of sea animals die every year unable to digest the huge amount of<br />plastics in their bodies, because throwing trash in the ocean is a lot cheaper<br />for the corporations than giving waste proper handling. Hundreds of thousands of<br />tons of computer waste and cell phone trash are shipped to the beaches of africa<br />every week.<br /><br />Thousands of people were killed and many others injured and intoxicated for life<br />in Irak and Afganistan, because the invaders are using "depleted uranium" in<br />their missiles and artillery, because this highly effective explosive is able to<br />cut through steel and solid rock like butter. Regardless of the toxicity of this<br />atomic material which is able to remain active in the ground for several<br />decades.<br /><br />And yet.....Free market economists say "It's impossible to live without money",<br />"It's impossible to calculate the cost of new infrastructure projects",<br />....."It's impossible to allocate resources without the use of<br />money"......."It's impossible for the world to get rid off money"<br /><br />Well, if you are a free market economist and or a Capitalist advocate, let's see<br />how you calculate all this death and destruction in your equations.....The<br />selfish nature of greed for money, is not worth our existance itself.<br /><br />Are we to believe that we can just look away from this mess and try to build our<br />own companies to keep competing and stepping on each other's heads forever?<br /><br />Let's see for how much longer we can keep this aberrant and sick society.<br />Let's see how many prayers will be enough to wake up those Gods living in the<br />paradise of our insecure minds.<br /><br />Let's see how many more war-glorifying video games are enough to teach our kids<br />a thousand ways to kill somebody. And never how to help someone in desperate<br />need.<br /><br />I'm a 3d animator and CG modeler myself, and back in 2006, I was awarded "first<br />place" in a challenge that was about creating a video game cinematic, I wrote an<br />original story that was about a video game in which the main characters are sent<br />to rescue missions around the world, these characters could only use none lethal<br />weapons to deal with their enemies, they could use explosives and hi-tech gear,<br />but only to break their way in their rescue missions of people in disaster<br />situations and such.<br /><br />I was quite surprised that the president from the Game Developers Conference<br />himself, gave me the award personally in San Francisco, I was so glad that I got<br />the message across and went home with a big smile.<br /><br />However, the empire, the pentagon, hell-i-burton, General Electric, Lockheed<br />Martin, the ATF, they have a little more power and resources to manipulate the<br />video game industry than the little of me,... hundreds of war glorifying video<br />games have flooded the stands of video game stores around the world ever since<br />the very first game consoles appeared.<br /><br /><br />Bored teenagers who have spent half their lives in front of the tv and a game<br />controller in their hands, begin to believe that killing another human being is<br />easy and actually entertaining, unaccounted for, and actually end up as hero's<br />that the whole world loves, and then they join the real army, full of empathy,<br />patriotism, or just the need for the money....Just to comeback later with an<br />amputated extremity, severely traumatized, drug addicted and a few years later<br />totally forgotten and unknown begging for coins sitting on a wheelchair on the<br />streets. With a big budweiser in a paper bag. But hey, those are the real hero's<br />war creates.<br /><br />So, let's see for how much longer we want to live in constant fear and distrust<br />with each other<br /><br />Wether we are rich or poor, its the same......the rich ones live in a permanent<br />state of competitive neurosis trying to raise their profits every year, they<br />live afraid and insecure from their associates, their partners, their employees,<br />so they feel the need to be always watching their backs.<br /><br />They spend fortunes in security personal, bodyguards, anti-assault vehicles,<br />expensive surveillance equipment. they buy several homes and real state around<br />the world, to make sure they will always have some back up value in case<br />something goes wrong, in case they need to escape from a fraud or from a legal<br />problem.<br /><br /><br />The poor ones on the other hand, live in a constant struggle in order to<br />provide the basic needs for their families, in a constant neurosis to gather the<br />money for the rent, the electric power, water and energy bills, ...taxes,<br />clothing, food, school items, etc<br /><br />And the vast majority, the ones at the very bottom, digging in the trash,<br />stealing scraps, selling stuff on the streets, begging for a few coins, stealing<br />cars, cell phones, wallets, and the most terrifying of all....stealing people<br />for money.....selling people for money.....buying people for money......killing<br />people for money......"<br /><br />Now, If all the previous information is still not enough to make you rethink<br />your life and our society, and start living without monetary debt, and wether<br />you support the Venus project or not.......Then, keep waiting, there are a lot<br />more reasons to make us change waiting to be added in the long list of human<br />failures.<br /><br />We'll never be perfect, we are still just humans, but we have to learn to make<br />changes in our direction and our lives, or just keep following the tail of the<br />sheep ahead of us.<br /><br />The choice is ours.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/al-from-mexicos-article-for-v-radio.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-5663756700817469612Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:56:00 +00002011-02-28T09:56:50.526-08:00A post I shared on Rick Ross's anti-cult website.Putting this here for ease of sharing:<br /><br /><br />1. One of the reasons for the confusion over what our organization is is because we state that we are not a "political movement". But in practice we are a political activist organization in the same context as Green Peace, Veterans for Peace, etc. We advocate an economic model designed for ecological sustainability. Not a religion, superstition, etc. (In fact a lot of our members are atheists.) We suggest people use the scientific method to test ways of fixing the world's problems rather then relying on politics or superstition.<br /><br />2. Activity as far as membership in TZM consists of signing up for a mailing list. Optionally chatting on forums or using voice chat. (The vast majority of people signed up for the newsletter and mailing list do not do this.). We attend public events to try and engage in dialog about our ideas in the same way other activist groups do. Some groups of people have meetings in person to talk about this stuff but they are not secret cabal meetings in forests or something. In fact most of them are in public places like libraries and such, again like most activist groups. If someone "leaves" the group it would actually probably go completely unnoticed. If someone was friends with a given member they might inquire as to why they didn't see their friend at a meeting but there is no protocol suggested or even implied that we would go track people down and try to guilt trip them into attending meetings again. And removing yourself from our email list is as easy as it is for any other activist organization.<br /><br />3. Peter Joseph does not paste his personal information and his financial records everywhere. And while I can understand why this is often a concern with a given organization, there are no "membership dues". He gives away all of his films on the internet for free, including files to allow you to make your own DVDs. If people buy DVDs from him it's generally because they don't know how to burn them themselves. He could easily charge $20 for these and he only asks for $5. He sells T-shirts but he is not making a killing on them. And in fact spends a lot more money on this activism then he ever gets out of it. To say nothing for the hours of his time he puts into making activist films. There are hundreds of indy film makers who do the same, but make a hell of a lot more money then he is. Michael Moore comes to mind.<br /><br />4. There is no "abuse" going on. I have challenged Mr. Wish to produce any sort of evidence of "abuse". He seems really fixated on our internet forums and not much else. He uses a lot of language like insinuating that people could die, get hurt, or their "blood" could be on someone's hands and to be blunt, this is all really silly. The vast majority of the interaction that people have in the Zeitgeist movement goes on in public places or on the internet. Nobody is being molested, sexually harassed, intimidated, or mentally abused. And when he came to our forums and made that broad and vague accusation of "abuse" even users who are critical of our moderation team because they are anarchists philosophically and wish we didn't have moderators still came forward and told him he was being unreasonable.<br /><br />5. The first Zeitgeist film did contain a lot of stuff about conspiracy theories. But it was put together by Peter when he was in college as a music major. It was part of an artistic presentation he did and never really expected it to be anything special. The most controversial portion about religion was based on a book he read by an author named Acharya S. and was not his own research. But he was an atheist so he liked it and included it. Some people liked it and suggested he put it on the internet. He never expected it to get the following that it did. This said, when he made that film he had no idea what a Resource Based Economy was, or who Jacque Fresco was. He stumbled across the idea when he was looking for solutions to the perceived problems he saw in the world that he talked about in the film. Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project do not endorse the first film. And belief in conspiracy theories is by no means required to support the ideas Fresco presents. You will notice there are no conspiracy theories presented in the orientation guide. And while some members still watch the first Zeitgeist film it is not relevant to anything we spend time talking to people about.<br /><br />6. With the advent of the internet there are a lot of cultural factors as far as to what the internet is still being ironed out. If you own a given website it is fully within your rights to set rules for how it will be used by other people. Just as you are within your rights to set rules for what topics you don't want talked about in your house. We run into new territory when people do not agree with things being said on a given website. But the analogy I came to realize applied better was this: Imagine you have decided to have a civil rights meeting at your house. A racist comes over and starts to disrupt the meeting and is very clearly not in support of the purpose of the meeting. So the owner of the home asks the person to leave. That is what goes on when we ask someone to leave our forum. It is meant to be a meeting place to talk to other people interested in the same topic. None of us would ever advocate censorship of dissent elsewhere. Just as it is the right of that racist to go to the street corner and protest our civil rights meeting if that is what he wants to do. Some of us have taken action against people who's "dissent" includes what amounts to little more then cyber-bullying and harassment. But that is done on an individual basis and not the organization as a whole.<br /><br />In conclusion:<br /><br />I would hope that the people who frequent this forum while being concerned about cults would also be concerned about the kind of damage you can do to well meaning organizations by labeling them cults too quickly. I would ask you to think very critically of what it is your reading about the Zeitgeist movement and be skeptical of the other side of the argument as well. Internet harassment of different organizations is becoming more and more common. And words like "cult" are extremely easy to abuse. You may not agree with the political views of the Zeitgeist movement but that does not make it a cult. And I hope you also realize that the internet is full of angry people making unfounded allegations towards one group or another that they feel has done them wrong, or just to amuse themselves. And that is what is going on here. I found out about this conversation because one of the people who does this just to amuse himself (including taking people's personal photos, their personal information and warping them to engage in schoolyard mocking behavior) had the link posted on one of his websites. In other words, they are hoping you will label us a cult not because anyone is being hurt or is in any danger, but because they would get the same sadistic pleasure they do when they photoshop pictures of members of our family to humiliate them out of this. You will notice if you study it further that most of these people are also just as concentrated on people who have moderated them on the forums.<br /><br />[thezeitgeistmovements.wordpress.com]<br /><br />This page is an example of the kind of childish cyber-bullying i am talking about. You will notice the endless mentioning of my weight, and very little in the way of intellectual content. At one point he posted a video of me and my three year old son playing together to insinuate my son was stupid. This is the kind of harassment I might add that is the reason we have anonymous moderators. This person spends a great deal of time in their life doing this. And chases us all around the internet doing things of a similar intellectual value. And it is people like him that is where this "cult" business started.<br /><br />While I do feel we need to be concerned about people being hijacked into "cults". I would also caution people to be equally concerned that they might also be hijacked in the lynching of innocent organizations that just angered someone who is behaving petty who might use your efforts for their own amusement. I keep thinking of "the crucible" and how in Salem a girl who felt scorned used the Christian religion to get back at her "enemies".http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/post-i-shared-on-rick-rosss-anti-cult.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-1472645849276034497Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:15:00 +00002011-01-18T16:15:36.086-08:00V-RADIO review of "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward"Review of Zeitgeist Addendum<br />By Neil Kiernan<br /><br />The official showing here in Michigan is not until the 20th, but thanks to Peter I was able to watch the movie online for the purposes of this blog review. I had meant to do this earlier but a lot of things got in the way. <br /><br />In any case, what follows is my review of the various chapters of this great film which is arguably Peter's best to date. <br /><br />The film starts out with one of my favorite speeches that many of you may remember from “Capitalism Epic Fail”:<br /><br />“You have to ask yourself: When you finally get the ultimate possession, when you’ve made the ultimate purchase,when you buy the ultimate home, when you have stored up financial security and climbed the ladder of success to the highest rung you can possibly climb it, and the thrill wears off–and it will wear off–then what?”<br />– John Ortberg<br /><br />After this we get into some powerful imagery. Some time ago I read an article about this area in New York where the wealthy spend their time shopping for $3,000 hand bags while people are lying homeless on the street. They casually walk by these people with no interest at all in their predicament. I remember giving a link about this out to people in the movement. It was powerful to see Peter Joseph put that place to imagery, and he later mentions the handbags later in the film. I wanted to let people know that the imagery presented actually represents something real. <br /><br />After some awesome animation about Jacque Fresco's early life and an epic quote that I will not spoil for you if you have not already seen the film, we launch right into the act of intellectually kicking the notion of “human nature” right in the balls. With interviews with multiple professionals who are experts in the field of human behavior and genetics including one from Stanford University, a comprehensive picture is painted of exactly how human behavior forms. And that it is entirely influenced by your environment going all the way back to the womb. <br /><br />One of the experts in question quotes an article that describes the “genetic” argument and therefore the “human nature” argument is an explanation for the way things are that does not threaten the way things are. Another of the experts condemned the notion that violent behavior is inevitable. <br /><br />At one point in the film it is even pointed out that someone's genetics themselves can change through life experiences. Generally obvious in victims of traumatic experiences, but it was obvious that this would also apply to positive experiences. This is not just in regards to behavior, it also had serious impact on the body as well. A fetus that is growing inside a mother who is being starved are found to develop a tendency to store all of their sugar and fat. I thought further about the implications of this, and it occurred to me that the obvious proof of this notion is clear in evolution. Particularly in the different races of humanity. Skin tone, and other various attributes of race were obvious adaptions to the physical environment of the people in question. Black people for example adapted darker skin to deal with the hotter weather in Africa. <br /><br />This all clicked into my head in a powerful way. The reason people's “genetics” adjust to violent behavior when they come from violent backgrounds is their personal evolution preparing them to survive in a violent environment. If you are not exposed to violence you will have no need to develop that behavior to survive. You can see this obvious point when you consider that most of the best participants in violent sports such as Boxing or Football come from cultures where violence is more common or even encouraged. I realized finally that every aspect of who we are adapts to our environment. And a child who's parents are violent who is not exposed to violence while having genetics from those parents, is found not to develop violent behavior unless they also are abused. <br /><br />This whole segment of the film also had a profound effect on my attitudes about parenting. I suddenly became very sensitive to any sort of environmental stimuli in the lives of my own children. And I urge parents to consider this as well. <br /><br />All of the work that Peter did in this film does an excellent job of providing tangible and credible sources to the material in his “Where are we now?” and “Where are we going?” lectures he did previously, along with some of the information of the orientation guide that was not contained in “Zeitgeist Addendum”. And this was very vindicating for those of us who have been using those lectures as a source in our own debates. <br /><br />In the next segment of the film we again look at the monetary system. Getting into the origin of the idea of “private property”. Further reflections point to the fact that the GDP of a country does not by any means reflect the quality of life of people living in that country. Further exposing the way we have been conditioned to think that being a consumer is directly linked to our happiness. <br /><br />A really detailed analysis that is still very easy to listen to exposes a great deal about the falsehoods in the market system, and the inevitability of collapse of the money system. I got another happy moment when an article I had linked to Peter and Roxanne made it's way into the film as MIT did a study about how machines are in fact stealing jobs. <br /><br />Further analyzing the direct effects of social-economic status of people and their health. With all the excuses other then the lack of equality directly impacting the health of people completely debunked. <br /><br />The film then launches into what I would have to say is one of the best and most complete descriptions of a Resource Based Economy. Including how resources should be viewed, and a strong explanation of how it will work. Including a great description of how the circular city model works. <br /><br />I won't get into deep descriptions of this, but there was some humor in the film that absolutely took me by surprise and caused me to laugh so hard I had to pause the film while I was watching it. It really takes someone who is a veteran of Peter's typical dark and mysterious storytelling style by surprise. <br /><br />The ending was also powerful, and emotional. I have had multiple people tell me they were in tears because of it. But they are tears of joy. <br /><br />In conclusion “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” I think does an excellent job of finishing what “Zeitgeist: Addendum” started, while completely divorcing itself from any of the controversial aspects of the first “Zeitgeist” film. It did an excellent job of putting all the pieces together of Peter's various other lectures and other information that we have had to previously always have to link to anyone who had only seen “Zeitgeist: Addendum”. <br /><br />Excellent film. I have heard that the internet release that has yet to come is going to be even longer. And I am looking forward to it.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/v-radio-review-of-zeitgeist-moving.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-7146846649674846870Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:18:00 +00002011-01-14T11:18:25.937-08:00Exposing the connection between Jerald Loughner and the Zeitgeist films.Exposing the connection of the Zeitgeist Movement to Jared Loughner<br />By Neil Kiernan.<br /><br />When terrible things happen, people do their best to make sense of them. We are desperate to find answers to the question of “Why?” So why did Jared Loughner buy a gun, and shoot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords? Why did he then turn and shoot everyone in sight including a nine year old child? <br />Recently Fox News interviewed someone named Zachary Osler who claims to of been friends with Loughner. And this is what brings us to talking about the following quote:<br /><br />“I really think that this ‘Zeitgeist’ documentary had a profound impact upon Jared Loughner’s mindset and how he viewed the world that he lives in,” he said.”<br /><br />Fox went on to elaborate that the Zeitgeist series of films railed on currency based economics. They also pointed out that this fellow had not spoken to Loughner in about two years. Meaning it's highly possible that Loughner had never seen “Zeitgeist: Addendum” and obviously never would have had the chance to see “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” before these attacks. But even the first Zeitgeist film did not condone or suggest violence. <br /><br />Initially when this tragedy went down the right-wing conservative “Tea Party” movement and their extreme views was blamed. There is one place where the Libertarian movement and Zeitgeist intersected. And that was the portion of the first film about the Federal Reserve. I myself learned about Zeitgeist because a lot of people who were supporters of Congressman Ron Paul suggested that part of the film to explain the Federal Reserve's origins. This portion of the film is also what put Zeitgeist on the government's radar, as we have seen law enforcement documents that link the first film to militia movements, and other organizations suspected of possible terrorist activity. <br /><br />Since then, Peter Joseph went on to make the film “Zeitgeist Addendum” and now “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” which both take a stance that is vastly different then the Free Market Economical ideas advocated by Libertarians, Right-wing Conservatives and the Tea Party movement. In fact both of these later films are highly critical of the Free Market ideology. And rightly so. <br /><br />Anyone who has actually taken the time to watch the Zeitgeist film series knows that there is nothing in any of these movies that suggest violence as a means to achieve political ends. Point of fact the Venus Project which the Zeitgeist Movement is the activist arm of, openly condemns violence or coercion as a tool to reach any social goals. Not only because it is immoral and wrong to engage in such activity, but because it doesn't even work. Acts of violence are a great way to cast your views in a negative light. And that is exactly what is happening here. The difference is nobody in the Zeitgeist Movement, or affiliated in any way with the Venus Project committed these acts of violence. They are being falsely attributed to the Zeitgeist films and therefore the movement itself. <br /><br />The Right-wing Conservative movement is now seizing an opportunity to save itself by pointing the finger squarely at the Zeitgeist Films. Rush Limbaugh in all of his bluster had this to say: <br /><br />“It wasn't just Zeitgeist. " According to reports, Loughner's favorites included little-known conspiracy theory documentaries such as 'Zeitgeist' and 'Loose Change' as well as ... 'Donnie Darko' and 'A Scanner Darkly.'" Now, Zeitgeist is "a 2007 documentary that asserts Jesus Christ is a myth, that 9/11 was orchestrated by the government, and that bankers manipulate the international monetary system and the media in order to consolidate power." So a conspiracy movie (put together by deranged leftists, it turns out) appears to be, according to his best friend, the most influential media of this young man's life.”<br /><br />Limbaugh's other statements basically go to blame the whole thing on the “Left”. In typical fashion we watch as the people who are still duped into believing that being “Right” or “Left” actually means something point fingers at each other in desperation hoping to use tragedy to sway public opinion against their opposition. This of course goes both ways. The left was very quick to point the finger at the right as well. Which is what provoked Limbaugh's response in the first place. <br /><br />So lets break this down a bit further. Does it even make sense that someone supposedly inspired by “Leftist Conspiracy nuts” would take a mind to shooting a Democratic Congresswoman? Considering the Democratic party is deeply rooted in the left? Obviously that's silly. In the recent 2010 election Congresswoman Giffords was a political target for the right-wing Tea Party movement. This is where the infamous “cross-hairs” pictures associated with Sarah Palin and her political action committee came from. On the website there were cross-hairs over a picture of Giffords along with other members of the Democratic Party in Congress. The Tea Party rallied in support of her opponent in the race, a Republican by the name of Jesse Kelly. So again, why would someone inspired by extreme leftist views decide to shoot her? <br /><br />It is true that the first Zeitgeist film was very critical of the government. But that is not something that by any means is exclusive to the left. As I previously pointed out I found out about the first Zeitgeist film because of my previous deep involvement with the right. “Loose Change” is not what I would call “Left-Wing”. In fact the filmmakers work closely with Alex Jones who is quite obviously on the right, and advocate of Free Market ideology who frequently has Congressman Ron Paul and the new Senator Rand Paul on his show. “911 Truth” is not right or left. There are people on both sides who have this interest. <br /><br />“Zeitgeist Addendum” is a film that is critical not only of governments but of corporations. And the monetary system itself. It goes after the bankers, and then it goes after money and the profit motive. It then goes on to suggest that war, corruption, poverty, etc are all caused directly or indirectly through the use of money. It strongly advises that people look into renewable energy sources, and ecologically sound practices. These messages are also conveyed through the Venus Project. First, lets take a look at the reported political views of one Jerald Loughner. <br /><br />Jerald Loughner was really big on the Constitution. <br /><br />In a video called “Introduction: Jared Loughner” he writes, “No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver!” <br /><br />In his youtube video series he seems to go back and forth between the idea that we should bring back the gold standard, and the idea that people should just make their own currency. His videos are largely full of rambling. At no point has he ever suggested a Resource Based Economy as proposed by the Zeitgeist Movement. <br /><br />The idea of returning to a gold standard is highly popular in circles on the right, Ron Paul and his followers have spoken highly of such an idea. The idea of getting rid of the Federal Reserve is very popular in that circle. A gold standard however is not at all suggested in “Zeitgeist Addendum” or “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward”. Neither is the idea of making one's own currency. We advocate using technology to evolve mankind beyond the need for currency or monetary exchange at all. <br /><br />Fox News claimed it had seen a Department of Homeland Security memo which said Jared Lee Loughner, 22, had ties to American Renaissance, which is staunchly anti-immigration, anti-government and anti-Semitic. <br /><br />Arizona Republican Gabrielle Giffords, the target of the mass killing, is ‘the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government. She was also opposite this group’s ideology when it came to immigration debate,’ according the DHS memo.<br /><br />There is not a shred of anything racist, much less anti-Semitic in any of the Zeitgeist films. The Zeitgeist movement seeks a world that will eventually be without borders, and obviously has no issue therefore with immigration policy. <br /><br />So taking all of this into account, lets look for a moment at what kind of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was. She was given a progressive (left) score of 41 out of 100 by “That's my Congress” due to her voting record. She was only given a Conservative rating of 11 out of 100. Again, this is not making a good case for the idea that some evil leftist documentary convinced someone to kill her. <br /><br />Most of her voting record was fairly typical politician. She supported a lot of centrist views. But was really big on one issue that was very important to most members of the Zeitgeist Movement. Renewable energy. <br /><br />She voted in favor of and sponsored several bills in support of renewable energy, and always praises efforts of various government agencies to switch to renewable energy. This is a statement from her website: <br /><br />“I believe we need to move towards energy independence both for our national security and for the safety of our planet. That is why my sixth vote in the 110th Congress in support of H.R. 6 was to repeal subsides for oil companies and invest those funds in renewable energy.<br />As a member of the House Committee on Science and Technology and its Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, I remain committed to making energy independence one of my top priorities in Congress. <br />Ending America’s addiction to foreign oil, investing in renewable energy—especially solar—and achieving energy independence is the Apollo mission of our generation. The U.S. Energy Information Administration states that Arizona’s large desert areas offer the highest solar power potential in America. Arizona has over 300 days of sunshine every year, and, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, we have the potential to produce over 150% of our state’s energy demand with solar energy.<br />Solar energy is clean, safe and noiseless. However, we currently only get less than 1% of our energy from solar power. We should do much more to make Southern Arizona the “Solar-con Valley” of the nation. I have introduced two bills in Congress to make this vision a reality and developed my Community Solar Energy Initiative—a four point plan to promote solar energy, including: legislation, education and outreach, accountability and transparency, and a solar energy advisory committee. <br /> I am determined to lead America in energy independence. I support:<br />a goal of 20% renewable energy use by 2020;<br />increasing fuel economy standards for our vehicles to save drivers money at the pump, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases;<br />increasing and extending federal tax credits for homeowners and businesses who install solar panels;<br />encouraging the development of fuels like ethanol and bio fuels, and<br />increasing research and development for renewable energy, such as solar, wind, and geothermal.<br />The road to energy independence will take cooperation and leadership at the local, state, and federal levels of government. I am committed to working across the aisle to make it possible for our children and grandchildren enjoy a clean, healthy environment in our beautiful state of Arizona and across the nation.”<br /><br />On that same website pictures of solar panels decorate the top margin. <br /><br />I would point out that her support for renewable energy projects is directly in line with the principles of the Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement. Would be nice if she would catch up issues like the Iraq War. Though she does support a reasonable time frame for withdrawal, but not an immediate one. <br /><br />In short, I see no reason at all why anyone influenced by any of the Zeitgeist films would hate this woman. Let alone want to shoot her. It's pretty clear people on the right didn't like her politics. <br /><br />So what motives do we have that are likely? <br /><br />Well, for one Loughner was known as obsessed with lucid dreaming. And did a lot of hallucinogenic drugs. Friends of his stated that he used a lot of Salvia. And an ex-girlfriend recently interviewed stated he used hallucinogenic mushrooms. He was extremely into the idea that people could mold their own reality. And therefore showed a lot of signs of being out of touch with it. People stated that he had an interest in rocking the boat and pushing people's buttons. Supposedly this is why he listed Mein Kamph as one of his favorite books. He apparently had a lot of problems with authority in general. And like many people who have gone down that road he also seemed to feel that the authority of reality itself should not apply to him. <br /><br />For this reason Jerald Loughner's crime can exist without a tangible motive. Meaning that whatever he may of dreamed up in his head could have been the cause. His shattered sense of reality could of produced any number of reasons that did not in any way have to adhere to logic. As Peter Joseph stated in his own statement on the matter, the real culprit here is the system that creates these people. <br /><br />In conclusion, I am sure many of you have heard me say on my show and in my blogs that the right or left paradigm is a distraction. As people rush to point their fingers at the opposing side in situations like this the real root causes will be forever lost to most people. The right will continue to say it is the fault of the left. The left will continue to say it is the fault of the right. When the real culprit is the elephant in the room. The problems that both the right and the left ignore or leave out of their ideologies. And like many other situations just like this the truth of the matter will be buried underneath layer and layer of propaganda. Forever blinded by their need to gain rank over their opposition, reality of these situations is a casualty of war, the war for your mind. <br /><br />In exposing this "connection" as the media has called it, we find no connection at all.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/exposing-connection-between-jerald.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-1624702796207063305Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:03:00 +00002011-01-12T16:03:19.835-08:00Public statement from Peter Joseph about the recent shootings in AZ.PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM THE CREATOR OF THE “ZEITGEIST FILM SERIES”, PETER JOSEPH:<br /><br />RE: THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ASSOCIATION CREATED BETWEEN “ZEITGEIST” AND THE TUCSON MURDERS.<br /><br />It has come to my attention that various mainstream news organizations are beginning to run an association between my 2007 performance piece/film, “Zeitgeist: The Movie” and the tragic murders conducted by an extremely troubled young man in Tucson, Arizona. They are also slowly beginning to bleed the obvious line between my 2007 documentary work, my film series as a whole and The Zeitgeist Movement, which I am the founder. Frankly, I find this isolating, growing association tremendously irresponsible on the part of ABC, NBC and their affiliates - further reflecting the disingenuous nature of the America Media Establishment today.<br /><br />It appears to have begun with a comment on NBC news referencing my film along with other “influential” films as well, such as Richard Kelly's film “Donnie Darko” and then spreading to ABC News where it singled out "Zeitgeist: The Movie" and the Series itself, stating:<br /><br />“Osler pointed to an online documentary series called "Zeitgeist" as a possible influence on the man.<br />The series rails on currency-based economics.<br />"I really think that this 'Zeitgeist' documentary had a profound impact on Jared's mindset and how he viewed that world that he lives in," Osler said.”<br /><br />abcnews.go.com/US/tucson-shooting-friend...ed/story?id=12597092<br /><br />When we reflect on the history of seemingly random violence or other forms of highly offensive, irrational, aberrant behavior, we see a common pattern of reaction from the public and media in their attempt to explain such extreme acts. Rather than deeply examining the Bio-Psycho-Social nature of human social development and the vast spectrum of influences that create and morph each of us in unique and sometimes detrimental ways, they take the easy way out. The first thing they do is simply ignore all modern scientific, social understandings of what generates human motivation in both positive and negative regard, for to do so can only call into question the social system itself and hence the “zeitgeist” (meaning: spirit/intellectual climate of the time/culture) at large. <br /><br />Generally speaking, it is historically accurate to say that the Mainstream Media simply isn't in the business of challenging the Status Quo. The limits of debate are firmly set. Virtually all ideas, persons or groups who have succeeded in changing the world for the better, later to be hailed as heros in the public mind, started out being condemned by those in the Mainstream Media who latch on to the dominant world view of the time. Even Martin Luther King Jr., a peaceful, loving, wonder of a man who contributed more to our social progress than likely any humanitarian in the US history, was followed by the CIA and publicly humiliated as a “Communist” which he even had to defend in front of a Congressional Committee. In fact, you can rest assured that if King were alive in the current paradigm today and seeking an equal form of justice - he would be given the name: “Terrorist”.<br /><br />So, again, rather than taking the scientific view, the Mainstream Media often seeks out or implies one point of blame and runs with it. After all, it is much easier, presentable and more simplistic for the public to think that the troubling reality of seemingly random acts of mass murder is the result of a “singular influence” and hence the logic goes that if that one influence is removed, then the world will be back in balance. This gives the public a false resolve and position of focus in an otherwise ambiguous, complex world of social and biological influences. And as far as the scapegoat itself, very often any group, media or dataset that is counter-culture or even hints at wishing to challenge the status quo, is a magnet for such blame. <br /><br />For example, musical groups of a counter-culture nature have been a favorite scapegoat for acts of murder/violence historically. In 1990, the rock band Judas Priest was actually taken to court for their “role” in the self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1985 of 20-year old James Vance and 18-year old Raymond Belknap in Reno, Nevada. In 2008, the band Slipknot was publicly tied/blamed to a high-school murder in South Africa. Even the Beatles song “Helter-skelter” was associated to the murders incited by Charles Manson. It goes on and on... and, frankly, it's simply pathetic - avoiding the true nature of the problem - which is the Socio-Economic Environment itself. <br /><br />Make no mistake: The Social System is to blame for the rampage of Jared Loughner – not some famous online documentary which is known as the most viewed documentary of all time in internet history. Are the other 200 million people who have seen the film also preparing for murder sprees? I think not.<br /><br />In my new film: "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward", I feature a prominent Harvard Criminal Psychologist by the name of Dr. James Gilligan who headed the Centre for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School for many years. In his life work of personally engaging the most dangerous, violent offenders the US system produces, he found some basic trends. The most common is the social issue of “shame”. Our socio-economic system inherently breeds social division and there is a natural demeaning of others generated as a result. It is a scientific fact that mass murderers and those who many just dismiss as “evil” today, are the product of years of being shamed, humiliated and demeaned. Their acts of violence is a reaction from these highly oppressive feelings and the real resolve to such acts can only come from removing the real source of such emotional hurt. You will notice that most other countries don't come close to the level of violence we see in the United States. The US is the capital of violence with 30-300 times more acts of violence than any other country. We have produced more serial killers in America than all other countries combined. Why? You will notice the Mainstream never asks this question.<br /><br />If anyone would like to understand why more and more people in the modern world end up like Jared Loughner and why these patterns are only going to get worse as time goes on in this system, I suggest the book “Violence” by Harvard Criminal Psychologist Dr. Gilligan.<br /><br />In conclusion, let it be stated that the Zeitgeist Film Series is about critical thought regarding various social issues which challenge many erroneous notions held as fact in the modern culture. It also explicitly promotes non-violence, human unity and prosperous human development based on truth and science. <br /><br />Anyone who wishes to really understand the works can view them for free online at zeitgeistmovie.com and my new film, which will detail how a new, humane social system can work, will be in 315 theaters in 60 countries and 30 languages starting Jan 15th 2011. www.zeitgeistmovingforward.com<br /><br />I am also in contact with my legal team and considering legal action against ABC. <br /><br />-Peter Josephhttp://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/public-statement-from-peter-joseph.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-3798982056576756551Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:09:00 +00002012-07-30T10:44:10.416-07:00A study on the failures of text debate.So recently I brought to some of your attention a sham of a Facebook group that is trying to say it is for debate of the Zeitgeist movement. I suggested to some people that they should block people from this group as several of them spend their time getting into your facebook and taking your pictures and videos to make fun of you. After this exposure and my points about how little intellectual value was being contributed there, one of them made a statement to try and defend his points. <br /><br />Now, I am not bringing this up to go over the points in question so much as to demonstrate a tactic commonly used in debate on the internet to watch for. First, let me post what he said:<br /><br />www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=295812873...opic=16147#topic_top<br />UPDATE, this group was recently deleted. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"David Indubitable Szemerda<br />I must say, it is terribly amusing that once again TVP in general think that our opposition is such a problem that they must advise their members to block us and attempt to discredit us using 'ad hominiem' attacks. <br /><br />Is that not what religious cults attempt to do? Ban people, burn books, tell their members not to listen to certain things. Oh wait, they aren't a cult. So what are they? I have NEVER suggested people block or ban ANYONE... I ENCOURAGE people to spend some time in TVP and see what they are really like. Seriously, what kind of people recommend LIMITING available knowledge? Are they telling their membership that they are too stupid to make their choices? Perhaps that they aren't smart enough to make their own choices?<br /><br />Anyhow for those who are interested in the facts. <br /><br />www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/inde...amp;id=305663#305663<br /><br />VTV Really has no concept of what he is talking about... <br /><br />"Now it's important to note that we shouldn't add people to this list who simply disagree with us. It's actually good to be able to have constructive dialog. "<br /><br />See, each and every one of us, has tried, and tried, and tried to have a debate with TVP members. However, it is not possible. They disregard facts that are inconvenient, they never actually address valid points, they have a double standard in almost every aspect. They continually do things like 'demand you provide evidence' yet they do not 'demand evidence' that any of Jacques theories have any validity. The list of contradictions is far too numerous to list, and I am quite sure most have experienced such contradictions. <br /><br />The end result is, you CAN'T debate a TVP member. I have attempted it for almost 2 years. Eventually even the most calm well balanced person shall resort to swearing to them. That is WHAT THEY WANT. They wish to use childish tactics to avoid addressing issues until they finally drive you to the point that start swearing and calling them morons. THEN they can 'justifiably' say, "Oh they are just ignorant bullies, they don't DESERVE our recognition." Or some other trivial excuse. Then they NEVER have to actually accept that there is NO debate. <br /><br />For example VTV continually brings up the concept that:<br /><br />"When one of them insisted that the "Promethean Workers" were working on the RBE before Jacque Fresco, they also said that TZM members never provide any proof of any of their claims, etc. So when I asked for them to prove that Promethean Workers was older, they told me it was founded in 2006. I found this ironic, considering in another post they were talking about Socio-Cyberneering, which if they actually knew anything about the fact that it was founded way back in the 70's would of been obvious to them. I proved by linking them to the corporation information on Socio-Cyberneering which was the company Jacque had back then (now inactive) that they were obviously wrong. By a lot. "<br /><br />That would be me. I did not bother to address the issue because it is a stupid claim. There is no evidence that Jacques had even understood the concepts of an RBE when he first formed The Venus Project. There is no writing, there are no documents, it is all hearsay, FROM BOTH SIDES. I acknowledge my evidence is hearsay, however I am not basing my argument on it. My argument is that Jacques has provided no evidence therefore his claims are JUST as inadmissible in a debate. Without valid evidence to prove his claims, his claims are simply that, CLAIMS. <br /><br />Using this example, which is THE ONLY example thus far that VTV has been able to provide, is to attempt to highlight that he was unable to respond to our numerous lists of problematic issues with the TVP concept. The latest being VTV incapability to directly answer the question if he understood the concept behind self-emergence of intelligence through complexity. THREE TIMES I DIRECTLY asked him that question without any other issues... Just the facts... And THREE TIMES VTV AVOIDED answering a simple yes or no question.<br /><br />I ask you, if you ask someone a DIRECT QUESTION with a yes or no answer THREE TIMES, and they avoid each time, yet still open their mouths and spew crap... aren't you going to feel like punching them in the face?!?!? It is only human that if you are given such incredible amounts of claims, and ZERO ability actually answer a simple question, you are going to look at the person as a moron. <br /><br />Thus it goes back to presentation that VTV encourages discussion.... How the hell can you discuss anything with a person who continually acts like a complete idiot, and then gets all defensive when you call him one?<br /><br />If you are someone who actually does look at facts, it shall not take long to understand that all claims made by VTV are simply 100% false. Of course if you are someone who looks at facts, you shall already be out of the TVP groups. If you are not, no amount of fact shall sway you from your cultish belief system."</blockquote><br /><br />So, brace yourself, because here comes my reply: IMPORTANT NOTE: I was far more harsh in my reply then I would generally be, and certainly more harsh when we allow on this forum. I permitted myself a bit of indulgence because this particular group of trolls have been rather crass to multiple members of the movement.<br /><br />So let us take a little while to break down the outright lies in your post. When I first came here, was around December 3rd. The first posts I noticed were you attacking Doug Mallette for having the same birthday as you.:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"David Indubitable Szemerda: Good God... Doug Mallet has the same birthday as I!?!? So much for any validity to Astrology."</blockquote><br />Along with a picture of Doug. This is just an attempt to troll Doug based on nothing. Fairly common troll tactic. <br /><br />Then we move on to the next post I participated in. It has a link to someone else's facebook you were spying on and you felt the need to troll them:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"David Indubitable Szemerda: <br />God sometimes it really opens your eyes to see what ZMer and TVPers do in private. I guess it not so much a cult, as a bunch of pathetic teenage groupies. Read the comments like :"Monica Mona peter is yummy and Jacque is ...daddy ♥ " Talk about 'Idol worship'... I think I shall go vomit now. www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=17466138...00000519755138"</blockquote><br />This I might add, is more childish bullshit. Anyway, the exchange that takes place afterward is someone from TZM pointing out how childish you are being. And you going on to say that they behave like they are in a cult. Etc. etc. Saying any group of people is cult-like is a pretty easy thing to do. By the definition alone you could say the Republican Party is a cult. Just because they happen to like Peter and Jacque doesn't make them cult members. I know people who admire Wayne Gretsky or Muhammad Ali. They are not cult members. <br /><br />As the exchanges go back and forth I watch as you become more and more belligerent as most trolls do. Right now in this post your trying to pretend that you were nice to me initially and then only retaliated. This is a blatant lie. <br /><br />You are also suggesting that I have suggested that people should block you from their facebooks because I am scared they will "see through our evil cult". It really has nothing to do with that. If I was a cult member worried about that I would not of bothered telling anyone you existed. <br /><br />That being said, lets go over the reasons I suggested to people that talking to you is a waste of time, and why they should probably block you from their Facebook accounts. <br /><br />You post a photo of Doug Mallette. Someone you do not know. For the purposes of mocking him. You obviously got the photo from one of Doug's Facebook photos. <br /><br />Then you posted a link to this:<br />(Prabhu Duraiswamy's photos)<br />www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=17466138...7362.100000519755138<br /><br />Solely for the purpose of trying to twist someone's nice post about Jacque and Peter into some sort of proof that they were cultists because they happened to admire the two men in the picture. It's pretty clear you are not friends with this person or you wouldn't be talking about them that way. This is just trolling. There is no reason for you to be looking at this person's FB account other then for as you put it to entertain yourself at their expense by "mocking" them. Anyone who thinks that mocking others is a past time worthy of the amount of time and energy I see you put in here calling people names has already proven intellectually inferior. <br /><br />So lets move on. <br /><br />You went on to say that you have been in TZM longer then me. As if this was in any way relevant. I pointed out this was an appeal to authority fallacy. You failed to grasp what that meant. I had to explain it to you about three times. How long you have been in TZM was not a relevant point to what we were discussing at all. That's why it was a fallacy. <br /><br />In the debate about that you say:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Seriously man... you are fucked in the head. You ARE fat as well. Go on a diet and learn something about reality."</blockquote><br />Because clearly, my weight is SOOO relevant to the topic of whether or not the length of time you have been allegedly involved with or aware of TZM. Clearly because I am fat, you are therefore more knowledgeable on the topic of appeal to authority fallacies. This would be ad hominem in it's most base form. Lets distract the audience from the fact that you just made an idiot out of yourself by calling attention to the weight of the person your debating with. This is clearly sound logic. <br /><br />So I point out the absurdity of this and you say: <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"It IS a valid tactic if that person cannot deal with reality and accept they are fat. That means the person in question has no real perception of reality. </blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">You are fat... Obese if you prefer... that is a fact... you co not accept it. Point made... you cannot accept reality."</blockquote><br />At no point in any conversation I have ever had on Facebook let alone here in your little "debate" group have I ever denied that I am in fact overweight. I brought this up several times. You always seemed to ignore it. So now, according to you we have proof that I cannot accept reality, because I will not accept that I am fat. Even though I have never once at this point denied that I am in fact overweight. Not a single time. But hey, if you repeat that a few dozen times it might gain some traction with people who are not actually paying attention. "SEE? That VTV guy is full of shit! He denies that he is fat!" the other person might say "Really?" and the first guy would say "Oh yeah, I read that a bunch of times on the internet. Obviously it must be true."<br /><br />So, aside from the fact that my weight is a complete Non Sequitur to the issue of the RBE, energy consumption, etc you and your troll friends spend a great deal of time reminding everyone reading that I am fat. This might work with people who have not matured out of grade school. And it certainly works a lot better from the safety of your keyboard. But it doesn't prove any validity to your statements at all. Or your credibility. In fact, it demonstrates the opposite. <br /><br />So here in my favorite obvious proof that most of the time you talk out of your ass in debate: <br /><br />www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbi...&amp;id=295812873005<br /><br />I point out that the people who were contesting TVP's attempt to trademark the RBE concept were people who wanted to corrupt the idea, you say:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Fuck you, you stupid moron... the Promethean Workers were working on a Resource Based Economy Theory long before Jacques showed up with his stupid vision. Don't fucking try to manipulate reality."</blockquote><br />Interesting that I supposedly cannot accept reality because I never denied that I am overweight. But you try to manipulate reality by claiming that the Promethean Workers were supposedly working on the idea long before Jacque showed up. Now, that being said, lets quote some of your above diatribe: <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"That would be me. I did not bother to address the issue because it is a stupid claim. There is no evidence that Jacques had even understood the concepts of an RBE when he first formed The Venus Project. There is no writing, there are no documents, it is all hearsay, FROM BOTH SIDES. I acknowledge my evidence is hearsay, however I am not basing my argument on it. My argument is that Jacques has provided no evidence therefore his claims are JUST as inadmissible in a debate. Without valid evidence to prove his claims, his claims are simply that, CLAIMS. "</blockquote><br /><br />So it is a stupid claim? Which was the stupid claim? (It was a stupid claim. made by you.) I am leaning towards the stupid claim being that the Promethean Workers were working on the idea before Jacque. But hey, lets go with you as the source to when the Promethean Workers were founded:<br /><br />This is DIRECTLY from you:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"We had one of the organizers there, I think they started their organization in 2006,"</blockquote><br />So you said there is no proof? Lets go over the proof then. <br /><br />Jacque Fresco's first Co-authored book was "Looking Forward" written in 1969. <br />ISBN 0498067521. OCLC 21606<br /><br />If you look at this PDF, the picture on the very first page is obviously a TVP city design. <br />www.scribd.com/doc/24712868/Jacque-Fresco-Looking-Forward<br /><br />(Oh, and FYI, there is an acknowledgments section, since you also stated that Jacque never gives credit I figured it might be prudent for you to check that out.) <br /><br />Socio-Cyberneering was founded in 1971. <br />www.corporationwiki.com/Florida/Venus/so...ing-inc-2677713.aspx<br /><br />"Incorporated by Fresco, Jacque, Gillette, Don A., Meadows, Roxanne, Sociocyberneering, Inc. is located at 21 Valley Ln Venus, FL 33960. Sociocyberneering, Inc. was incorporated on Monday, February 22, 1971 in the State of FL and is currently not active."<br /><br />Socio-Cyberneering was a proposal for an RBE community. As this video interview with Larry King dated in 1974 <br /><br />He wrote a book about it called "An introduction to Socio-Cyberneering" in 1977<br /><br />www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-sociocyber...Fresco/dp/B0006XD3B4<br /><br />First film in 1994: "The Venus Project: The Redesign of a Culture"<br /><br />Another in 2001: "Welcome to the future" <br /><br /><br /><br />Then his book "The best that money can't buy" in 2002<br /><br />www.amazon.co.uk/Best-That-Money-Cant-Bu...292366537&amp;sr=1-1<br /><br />"Cities in the Sea" and "Self Erecting Structures were both in 2002 as well. <br /><br />Then "Future By Design" in 2006. Which also contained videos of Jacque's early work on the trend home. Among other things. <br /><br />So all of this before the "Promethean Workers" came onto the scene. And there is plenty of documented proof. <br /><br />This proved that you made "CLAIMS" that were unfounded. As trolls often do. Your purpose is not to prove anything, but to rely on the hope that people will be persuaded by your personal attacks and ridicule. <br /><br />I would link you to the Promethean Workers website, but they don't have one. They are down to just a MySpace now: www.myspace.com/prometheanworker<br /><br />The reason they broke off is because they wanted to add spiritual mumbo jumbo to their beliefs. Among other things. I would link you to that stuff but it was on their website that is now gone. <br /><br /><br />So, sometime before this you linked this nutjob, Peter Whitlock:<br /><br /><br />And this is what you had to say about him:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"I like this guy... It gives a good history of how Jacques Fresco formed SocioCyberneering and shafted everyone out of there investment in the creation of The Venus Project. All that stuff is verifiable, PDR and I tracked down and verified most of independently."</blockquote><br />So when it was in your favor to quote him, you were all about him. I pointed out that he makes a lot of silly claims so I wouldn't call him credible. One of which being that supposedly Jacque and Roxanne are criminals and that the police are after them. I never at any point state that he said this in the video you linked. I just said that the as a source made a lot of crazy claims. <br /><br /><br /><br />In that video at 2:30 after you and Paco repeatedly insisting that I was wrong, lying, or stupid, or fat, or whatever other excuse I proved that the nutcase you are using as a credible source on Jacque Fresco insists that he is a criminal and that the police are after him. Even going so far as to say that he is going to call the police on him. (That video was made August 25th. You would think the police would of apprehended a 94 year old man who has lived at the same address for decades by now. <br /><br />Now, as I stated in the previous debate about the validity of the claims about Socio-Cyberneering the Wikipedia entry which I had to dig to find erroneously links to a known Anti-ZM troll's blog as a "source". The "source" even quoted by Paul Jones A.K.A "Anticultist" (Who is really into UFO stuff by the way) is from a random anonymous person who called himself "Euripide Sneed". That's not proof. As I pointed out in my debate with you. I could just as easily make a Wikipedia entry about you claiming that you have sexual relations with sheep, and link it to a blog where some anonymous person claims to of witnessed you doing it and then say SEE!??? I PROVED IT!<br /><br />This is not the sort of proof that would hold up in a court of law. Because it is what is known as "hearsay". <br /><br />The funny thing is, even in Sneed's testimony he says: <br /><br />"He doesn’t solicit money from people to buy fancy cars (as do some religious leaders), almost ALL the money he receives goes back into his art work, and toy models." <br /><br />Which is obviously contradictory to Mr. Whitlock's accusations. But hey, as I pointed out when trolling you "cherry pick" whatever you want and discount whatever doesn't suit your agenda. <br /><br />Any anonymous individual hiding behind a fake name can make any accusation they want. There is a reason this is not admissible in court. <br /><br />You claimed that you were able to find documented proof of all of these allegations but dubiously and I must say predictably you refused to give such evidence. Proof of the claims of Euripide Sneed would come in the form of actual documents confirming his story. Not a link to a blog where a known troll cut and pastes stuff from an anonymous source. <br /><br />(Note: It's interesting that earlier in a different conversation you were totally OK with demanding to know where Jacque's military records are. Because for some reason you think the burden of proof is on the accused not the accuser.)<br /><br />Oh yeah, here is the quote I think:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">""lied bout his military career" it does not change anything, he claims to have worked in development... I guarantee you he was a toilet cleaner... and a poor one at that."</blockquote><br />This is an example of the sort of unsubstantiated claims you make all the time. Since obviously you have no documentation to prove this or else you would not be asking me to dig up Jacque's military records, you just throw this out there hoping the readers will be naive enough to just accept your ASSumption. <br /><br />That same guy with the video you liked so much also has his own "plan for the future" that he built with what looks like children's blocks. He claims there is this mystical force called the "seals" that will save mankind. This kind of further proves my point that you really don't investigate past what looks appealing to your agenda.<br /><br />Anyway, moving on.<br /><br />To further give examples of why I suggested that people block the people here:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Ilira Walker: from the tzm fb wall, 12/11/10.Niccolo Grant: According to Zeitgeist, on the winter solstice Orion's belt lines up with <br />Sirius and this is symbolic of the Epiphany. Everything about that claim is wrong. Don't believe me? Go outside on the 21st and see if Orion's belt lines up with Sirius then. You will find you've bee..."</blockquote><br />Ilra is obviously not interested in TZM beyond the need to quote things out of context to make fun of people. <br /><br />And from Mario Brotha:<br />More cult worship. As a doctor, this bothers me.<br />www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/inde...atid=3&amp;id=305253<br /><br />He is trolling the TZM forums again, only to look for things to poke fun at or use to humiliate or insult people. <br /><br />He does so again in what I think is the single most damning thread here that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the lengths that the trolls will go:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"This is how VTV raises his children and this is horrible and scary. I should know, because I'm a doctor."</blockquote><br />Then he links this video of me playing with my son on a web cam, and you along with the other "intellectuals" go on to twist the video into an example of what a terrible father I am supposed to be. And how my son is stupid. <br /><br /><br /><br />In response: <br /><br />Paco said: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Paco Hernandez: I'm just as interested regarding how the father is more mesmerized by the screen and keeps staring at it like a zombie, than the child playing in the screen."</blockquote><br />That is because I was checking to see how the picture was coming out. What I was staring at was in fact my son. Genius. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"What is he teaching his kid? How to be indoctrinted by images on a screen."</blockquote><br />So you surmised in a less then two minute video that I am teaching my child to be indoctrinated by pictures on a screen? My kids barely get to watch TV at all. But clearly, all the intimate knowledge you gained and the insight you got here proves this theory of yours. This is further proof that the people here are full of shit. This is like a FOX news spin. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The father looks like he's on some sort of drug-sitting there stoned "zoning out." Even at my most tired, I'm more animated than this guy when it comes to his interactions with his kid." </blockquote><br />I was again watching the screen to see how the picture was turning out. You have no idea how I interact with my son outside of this brief video. None. But to the uneducated who might read this and assume you must be right or you wouldn't be saying it... <br /><br />Then you David basically claim my son is stupid:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Wow... that is scary. My kids understood that videos, cams, and mirrors were actually them about the same time they learned to walk." </blockquote><br />My son asks sometimes to interact with himself on the screen. It's a game we play. But hey, you watched a two minute video, and you don't like me so therefore you must be an authority on my son's mental faculties. <br /><br />You later try to excuse this despicable behavior by saying that because I mentioned to you that I was not going to answer your question right away because I was going to spend time with my son that it was proof that I was a bad father. The reason I explained why I was leaving and was not answering right away is because in several of your conversations you would try to "declare victory" if I didn't answer you right that very second. It was another stupid contrived accusation on your part. And further proof that you are a total intellectual failure. <br /><br />So taking a video of me and my son playing together and then using it to attack me is in your opinion acceptable. Again, a good reason for people to block you and the people who participate in that sort of thing here on Facebook. The same thing is true of the picture taken from my personal photos. Nothing about my hobbies is in any way relevant to the RBE, or energy, or anything actually relevant. Yet you guys acted like because I have this hobby it fully discredited the idea. This is also further ad hominem. It really has no basis in fact. But smear campaigns are common to liars with an agenda. <br /><br />I could quote pages and pages and pages of useless comments from you. But I will settle with just a few: <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"I would say I was just kidding when I said you were fucking stupid.... but I wasn't kidding. I am just like that."</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Fuck you VTV, there is no ad hominem... you are a 'tard, it is YOUR job to prove otherwise... Thus far you are quite obviously deficient."</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"No... you have not... yes I am sure with your little spock ears on you THINK you have proved something.. but to us who are not fucking 'tards... you have not. "</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Address anything you fat fuck."</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Fuck you are stupid... 'tard. Me calling you names stems from the fact you are stupid, NOT because I am incapable of defending my position intelligently. YOU on the other hand, think you can diminish the facts by trying to point out irrelevant facts (and yes they are facts) that I call you a fat fuck and 'tard. THAT has nothing to do with anything regarding a valid defense. It just means you are so pathetic that you can't debate with fact, you must simply find that which you find trivially offensive and pretend it discredits me. "</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Seriously.. you are a fucktard with the brains of a child. Go put on your ears and pretend you are logical."</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Is it possible all your fat has infected your brain? I am not sure if it is possible, but you provide some indication."</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"You obviously do not understand what I said, nor do you understand Project Brain Brain. You are far to stupid."</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />"See how fucking stupid you are?"</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Man are you fucking stupid."</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"You don't fucking 'install' self emergence.... it just occurs... that is what self emergence means... fucktard."</blockquote><br />Ok so I lied, that's more then a few. And there were plenty more where that came from. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were utterly incapable of rational debate. Just a hint, rational people don't call people tards, or stupid, or fat every other sentence during any form of intellectual discourse that anyone would actually consider credible. <br /><br />Then you go on to LIE and say I never answered you about AI. You are suggesting that AI will just do it's own thing. I pointed out more then a few times that when we install such systems in TVP systems we absolutely will put failsafes in to prevent any anomalies. <br /><br />You basically created a strawman by suggesting that TVP will fail because according to your research AI will always just become self aware on it's own. I pointed out that we would not install any system capable of doing that in anything critical. This was all in response to Paco's silly concept that somehow machines were going to turn into "Terminator" someday. It's science fiction. I didn't avoid you. I for a while said I would get back to you. Then you demanded I answer you right away. By spamming over and over again to try and get me to answer. So, for the sake of again proving you wrong:<br /><br />My answers:<br /><br />First answer:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"That's quite a wall of text. You will have to give me some time to look at it. So far you are the only anti-ZM poster here who is not just flinging poo." (Which was given to Paco)"</blockquote><br />Second answer, also to Paco:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Paco, Doug Mallettte is an Engineer who worked for the space shuttle program. If you would actually be wiling to talk about this somewhere absent morons like the one above me here I could persuade him to talk to you about this stuff. I am still going to answer it to the best of my ability but he is better with the tech then I am. I am not avoiding this I just feel it deserves my full attention and dealing with endless stupidity is a distraction we removed from our forums for a reason. (They also became much more productive.)"</blockquote><br />Third Answer:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The reason I haven't taken the time to get to more of a response yet goes back to the first post I made, which was asking if you could debate without ad hominem. I pointed out that I doubted it. Then I proved it. Your answers were basically full of little more then personal attack. Just like you posting pictures of me and making fun of those as well. The fact that you guys spend so much time looking for things to personally attack someone shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have no real argument of substance. I will get to the rest of this later, but the replies you have given so far prove exactly what I set out to prove. This is not a place for debate, it's just another haven for cowardly trolls. It's not special. The whole internet is full of them. Full of little cowards pretending to be men. When I typed out the first part only to have Paco reply with nothing of substance it just proved to be a waste of my time. If there is no intellectual value then it is only interesting when I take a mind to humiliating trolls. I have humiliated the trolls I set out to. And didn't even bother with the last one because discrediting him wasn't even nessacary. <br /><br />If I get bored and don't have anything else to do I will get to the rest."</blockquote><br />Fourth Answer:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"I already said I would talk to you about the rest later. That is, when I feel like it. My motivation to interact with ignorant people who behave the way you are is not very high. The short answer is I do not see why we would not place fail safes in computers with AI. It is kind of obvious. Your building the brain of a machine, you have complete control over what goes in it and what is hard wired. That's why that stuff is all science fiction. Machines do what you program to do. No more. No less. And even if you left a program able to develop on it's own there is no reason you could not hardwire fail safes to keep it from doing something you didn't want it to."</blockquote><br />Oh and for solidarity's sake, this is what you said in return:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Seriously.. you are a fucktard with the brains of a child. Go put on your ears and pretend you are logical."</blockquote><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Is it possible all your fat has infected your brain? I am not sure if it is possible, but you provide some indication." </blockquote><br />So I give you a real answer, only to have you spew grammar school nonsense back at me. Then you wondered why I was not very inclined to waste a lot of time on it? <br /><br />I also notice that your number of times that you supposedly asked me this question and I supposedly dodged it keeps going up and down. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"I have now asked you 4 times to address the AI argument... you STILL have not done so. Are you incapable of understanding that? Or simply incapable of defending that?"</blockquote><br />But here in your above essay, it was only three times. Hmm...<br /><br />So have to copy and paste my previous answer to again prove that you are lying when you say that I have refused to answer you. This would be the fifth time I answered you.<br /><br />Three posts ago, I posted this:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The short answer is I do not see why we would not place fail safes in computers with AI. It is kind of obvious. Your building the brain of a machine, you have complete control over what goes in it and what is hard wired. That's why that stuff is all science fiction. Machines do what you program to do. No more. No less. And even if you left a program able to develop on it's own there is no reason you could not hardwire fail safes to keep it from doing something you didn't want it to." </blockquote><br />And your answer, which contained no counter points or counter data, and nothing that would indicate that I was somehow wrong about the notion that we can build AIs with fail safes was this little gem of immaturity:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Seriously.. you are a fucktard with the brains of a child. Go put on your ears and pretend you are logical. "</blockquote><br />So, your saying I "STILL" have not answered you. When I have. <br /><br />Checkmate. <br /><br />Thank you for playing son.<br /><br />Sixth answer:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The only reason AI is even relevant to the issue of the RBE is because we plan to use some aspects of AI to help us with certain tasks. We have no intention to just build AI machines and let them run loose when they are in control over resources and conditions that are critical to human life. "</blockquote><br />Seventh Answer:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Why would we install a self emergent intelligence in a system that is critical to be reliable? This is just common sense. "</blockquote><br />Eight Answer:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The point is that none of the research your talking about is even relevant. No we wouldn't destroy existing research. But the concern was supposed to be that TVP was a bad idea due to some danger that the AI's involved could somehow decide to turn on us. I pointed out that this is science fiction. If self-emergent AI's exist obviously we wouldn't be installing them into critical systems. This is where you make assertions or ASSumptions as to our intentions and then try to claim to of discredited us based on your own conjecture and nothing we have said."</blockquote><br />Ninth answer:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"When you design a machine, you define the parameters it operates at. If you don't want it to develop attributes that are outside of your scope then you design it that way. It's really not that hard. All you manged to do was call me more names and fail to address anything. "</blockquote><br />So after you badgered me a dozen or so times for answers on this. I gave them to you over and over. Which would make this bullshit statement by you bunk:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"I ask you, if you ask someone a DIRECT QUESTION with a yes or no answer THREE TIMES, and they avoid each time, yet still open their mouths and spew crap... aren't you going to feel like punching them in the face?!?!? It is only human that if you are given such incredible amounts of claims, and ZERO ability actually answer a simple question, you are going to look at the person as a moron."</blockquote><br />So, now I have utterly crushed this post made by you. I demonstrated that you in fact do little more then troll. That we do in fact use evidence and documentation to make our arguments. That I did not in fact dodge your question about AI. And that despite your attempt to claim that this place is totally credible and that I made everything up about it in my suggestion that people should avoid this place, and you...<br /><br />Checkmate.<br /><br /><br />So, now to go over his replies to my well researched reply:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Yawn... that has been done VTV... quite boring... aren't you supposed to be blocking us? I thought that was your new edict. Why don't you heed your own words and not bother.<br /><br />Yes Tim, they generally have no clue about many things, most far more important that the one I chose. However I simply chose something simple VTV was working on in his response to Paco's post. Basically you can randomly pick virtually anything regrading TVP and disprove it. <br /><br />Instead of the movie "Field of Dreams" envision the TVP version... "Field of Delusions". One of my friends posted a tour of a former TVP concept. Ever hear of Earth Centre, Doncaster? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Centre,_Doncaster) 41.6 Million British pounds scammed for the purpose of a 'theme park' to demonstrate 'sustainability'. It is now a derelict. But the people who conceived it are doing well. </blockquote><br />Sound familiar?<br /><br /><br />This is an attempt to sidestep everything that just totally crushed what he said. He does this several times and then just tries to limp away.<br /><br />The conversation continued in a different thread wherein he is weighing whether or not he will debate Doug Mallette. I suggested that they should bring the debate to V-RADIO. So he said:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">You are not 'fair' here. you continue to claim 'checkmate' despite the fact you have no idea what you are talking about. How would I ever give you even the slightest confidence that you could be 'impartial' as the 'official spokesman' for TVP? I am not the 'official spokesman' for anything aside from David Szemerda.</blockquote><br /><br />Interesting... I think I demonstrated I certainly knew what I was talking about...he also demonstrated that he was completely incapable of handling that. But lets move on.<br /><br />So I reply to him with this:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">David. Please tell me how any of the things that I proved with actual documentation in your last attempt to debate me were wrong? This is the problem. Perhaps in the troll world people can pretend that they are still neck and neck in a debate. But in an intellectual world it doesn't work that way. The way I destroyed your point about how there is in fact documented proof of Jacque's work pre-dating the Promethean workers that I did in great detail is a perfect example of that. <br /><br />The person who is generally not "fair" is the one slinging insults all the time. As the people on my facbook group who have read the debate are now remarking, your failing to address my last point because you were completely trounced. You made several statements that were simply wrong. Or lies. Or both.<br /><br />As for debates on my show, I will basically shut up the whole time other then to prevent you guys from interrupting each other. And I say that plurally. I have moderated Presidential debates as well. The integrity of the conversation is most important. Honestly I think your probably worried that you won't be able to get away with trying to bury Doug's points like you try to do with mine here. It's a weakness of text debates.</blockquote><br /><br />So now here I have asked him to explain how I didn't know what I was talking about. I ask him to defend his statement that my claiming victory over his unfounded claims which I proved were utterly incorrect was somehow wrong. This is the best he could come up with:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Please tell me how any of the things that I proved with actual documentation in your last attempt to debate me were wrong" </blockquote><br />Perhaps your constant whining about 'ad homenium'? And you did not prove anything with documentation. Your normal strategy is to avoid answering questions. Even with your debate with Tim, you respond "I am no agricultural expert". Well, you do not have to be an agricultural expert to see the flaws, nor do you have to be a science expert to see the flaws, nor do you need to be psychology expert to see the flaws. <br /><br />The only things you appear to be an expert at are saying 'checkmate', declaring victory, avoiding answering questions and whining about people who make fun of you. <br /><br />"It's a weakness of text debates. "<br /><br />The only type of person who would think there is a weakness in text debates are people who cannot think properly. Writing, when you make the effort to do it properly, which I admit I do not bother to often, is FAR superior. One has the time to do proper research and documentation, link to references, detail analogies, have the space to provide alternate analogies for different perspectives. There are no time limits, there are no interjections, no heckling. Writing is a far superior medium for actual informational presentation. Unfortunate most people lack the attention span to read and write these days. Although it can lack the emotional appeal and drama. I would think the standard radio debate would be suitable for political topics, or perhaps a 'mock' debate for entertainment purpose in science fields. But far too limited for actual debate.</blockquote><br /><br />Hmm...interesting. So apparently all of the data that I provided that crushed his claims was not relevant, because apparently I whined about people making fun of me. Note that he doesn't talk about any of the data I provided that proved that Jacque Fresco was not just making "claims" about working on the RBE concept. Notice that he left out any of the data I presented that proved that I had in fact answered his question about AI multiple times. I reply to this a few times. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Ah I see David. So your debate style here is to say because I complain about Ad hominem, I am therefore wrong in the factual replies I gave to you with documentation to prove them. Dubious. (Actually it's simply bullshit.) I am not whining about it David. The fact is that you were utterly wrong. And I proved it. And now your trying to dodge it. <br /><br />And no, I think properly. The reason that text debates are a problem is because they allow you to do things like your attempting to do right now. There is no value to any of what you just said so far as defeating my points. I asked you the question "Please tell me how any of the things that I proved with actual documentation in your last attempt to debate me were wrong?" <br /><br />And your reply was to say I was whining about ad hominem. As if that has anything to do with it. As if that in any way disproves anything I said in my reply. That is weak at best. And in an audio debate you would sound very foolish for attempting to do this. </blockquote><br />I also answered all of your questions. And pointed out how I answered one of them no less then nine times. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"One has the time to do proper research and documentation, link to references, detail analogies," </blockquote><br />Yes, I did all of that too. And you are simply trying to dodge the very real truth. <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"There are no time limits, there are no interjections, no heckling."</blockquote><br />No heckling? Is this you whining about ad hominem now? That's just funny. <br /><br />So over the course of this sham of a reply you have given you have actually proven everything I said about weakness of text debate. Because in text you can attempt to hide from the mountain of data I just smashed your half assed statements with. And act like you are still somehow on top. <br /><br />Actually to further point this out, lets actually re-add the context to my statement that you attempted to debunk and truly expose just how incompetent your reply was:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The integrity of the conversation is most important. Honestly I think your probably worried that you won't be able to get away with trying to bury Doug's points like you try to do with mine here. It's a weakness of text debates."</blockquote><br />And your reply to that was to say: <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"The only type of person who would think there is a weakness in text debates are people who cannot think properly. Writing, when you make the effort to do it properly, which I admit I do not bother to often, is FAR superior. One has the time to do proper research and documentation, link to references, detail analogies, have the space to provide alternate analogies for different perspectives. There are no time limits, there are no interjections, no heckling. Writing is a far superior medium for actual informational presentation. Unfortunate most people lack the attention span to read and write these days. Although it can lack the emotional appeal and drama. I would think the standard radio debate would be suitable for political topics, or perhaps a 'mock' debate for entertainment purpose in science fields. But far too limited for actual debate."</blockquote><br />Note that you fail to address what I pointed out was the weakness? That being an attempt to bury his points under a mountain of irrelevant data? Just like your trying to do here? The best you could come up with was to say I was whining about ad hominem when the subject of ad hominem is barely even mentioned in my reply. You left out all of the links, data, structured replies and everything else that I used to crush your statement. <br /><br />So apparently according to you, in order for me to be "thinking properly" I should be completely OK with my opponent in a given debate being free to simply ignore the total destruction of their argument? <br /><br />And you say this place is fair? <br /><br />That's laughable. <br /><br />Paco had to come in and try and rescue you. And even he was not able to address even a tenth of what I said that destroyed what you said. <br /><br />Thank you for helping me prove my point about the weakness of text debate further.<br /><br /><br />Now, this is already a long post. So lets sum up. <br /><br />Right now, this person is banking on the fact that within the culture of the "Zeitgeist Debate" Facebook group, a group that has a mission statement of:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">There are many flaws in The Venus Project, and the Zeitgeist movement. There are those who would still like to continue the discussion off of different walls and boards of various groups, so I say let's discuss the ins and outs here.</blockquote><br /><br />That the fact that he was utterly defeated will just slide by the wayside. And for the most part it has. His allies there of course will not confront him for avoiding all of the data I provided. Another user stepped in just a little bit to talk about the video argument. But that was it. They will continue to treat him like someone who had credibility. And certainly more credibility then me. This is where the debate leaves science, and moves into politics. The fact that I was right on all counts is not relevant. What is relevant is that this person has kissed the right asses and backed them up when they were equally proven wrong in different debates. So therefore they will get together like a good "pack" of trolls often do to continue to gang up on me and post links to pictures of members of the movement and make fun of them. <br /><br />Now, in contrast. If I fail to answer even a single point they have made all of the "pack" will be sure to remind me in every single exchange. If I were to ever post a picture or video from their personal lives they would be quick to attack me for it. If I ever say anything crass to any of them then they of course will call me on that. <br /><br />So what we have here is thus:<br /><br />1. The trolls in question rely on the idea that they can distract the audience with endless witty and sometimes not-so-witty insults to keep them entertained while they give poorly researched arguments. They will engage in endless vicious attacks on their opponents so as to also hopefully unbalance them. <br /><br />2. When confronted with actual evidence (even when they claim we never give any) they will simply try and pretend it never happened. And cover up for each other when it does. They will give replies that convieniently leave out any points they have no reply for. (And in this case, he simply didn't have a reply for anything I said.) <br /><br />3. The trolls in question run in a "pack" so they can always seem to be "winning" because after all there are so many more of them then there are of you. They tend to isolate one person at a time. And since rarely does a large group of members of TZM ever go to their forum (and why would we?) they can do this. For a while last night me and one TZM member ganged up on one of their guys who's specialty is taking pictures from your facebook and calling you names based on it. When we collectively were not impressed it put him off balance. With no one around to talk about how great his efforts were it left him exposed to being the troll he was. <br /><br />4. And finally (And this is the best part) they will continue to dismiss any data you offer as "trite" and offer ad hominem analysis into how you are obviously intellectually inferior. They will do this with rare posts like the one I destroyed above where they try to conduct themselves as civilized debate experts for just a brief moment to assure everyone that they were completely justified in all of their name calling, and that the truth is that their opponent really didn't have any leg to stand on. Etc. etc. <br /><br />5. It never ends. The cycle repeats. <br /><br />Something that rarely happens which can put these guys off balance is when you can invade their groups with a larger group of people then they have. And turn things around on them just a bit. (Which is what I did in my post.) While entertaining, there is a reason that Peter says stuff like this is a waste of time. <br /><br />So that begs the question, why did I waste my time with it? <br /><br />Multiple members of the movement asked me to go here and debate these people. So I did. And my goal was never to change their minds. I know that will never happen. I proved why it can never happen. They are so wrapped up in hurting their opponents that they have lost any and all interest in actually having real debates. I gave him a real debate, his solution was to bury his head in the sand. So I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt why it is a waste of time to debate with any of these people. I do it as amusement sometimes because it is slightly more constructive then playing video games. But at the end of the day, it is very important to recognize that these people should have no power over you. But to demonstrate how they take that power. <br /><br />This has the added benefit of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the reasons we moderate this forum the way we do. Every tactic I just described, the personal attacks, avoiding the points, etc we just don't put up with that here. And as a result we have real communication with no politics. <br /><br />I hope you enjoyed what should be a book. I am working on making a documentary about this stuff.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/study-on-failures-of-text-debate.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-4149815047576614455Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:02:00 +00002010-12-20T16:31:14.558-08:00Is the Zeitgeist Movement a cult?Is the Zeitgeist Movement a cult?<br />By Neil Kiernan a.k.a VTV<br /><br />Where did the accusations start that the Zeitgeist Movement was a cult? Well as most unfounded statements about the Zeitgeist movement it usually starts with someone who is angry because they were banned from the forums for being jerks. The next phase of this generally leads to them going from being ardent supporters of the RBE and TZM to suddenly needing to find ways to demonize the thing that “rejected” them. It's not uncommon for people to do this. Though it is not exactly rational. Generally people who have to resort to such aggressive conversational tactics have a lot of un-expressed anger. So they lash out at people they are debating with. And when they are called to task for doing so, they scream “authoritarian” at the people telling them to stop. Because after all they don't want to be told what to do. (Never realizing of course that by attacking someone they are trying to dominate them psychologically and therefore are seeking to take authority over them.) <br /><br />On my show we have been over that topic many times. And am working on a film project to cover it even more in depth. The reason I sought to review it was because we needed to get at the core causes of why this “Oh yeah! Well your a CULT!” nonsense generally starts. They are angry for being in their minds “rejected” because of their aggressive behavior. So now it's time to ad hominem the group that cast them out to protect their pride. The irony that generally what caused them to leave was not that they suddenly saw flaws in the RBE itself. Just that they don't like being asked not to be bullies on the forums. But of course suddenly they hate the RBE too. <br /><br />It reminds me of an angry kid who is told he can't be part of a club some of his friends have formed so they say with anger: "Oh yeah!??? Well I didn't want to be part of your stupid club anyway!!!" Then they might go form their own club in retaliation. -cough RBOSE COUGH!-<br /><br />So the accusations of “cult” emerge. I have ignored this entire concept for some time because it seriously sounded so silly I didn't even feel it needed to be addressed. In my recent debates I decided to debunk it entirely. It didn't take long. It was then however that it occurred to me that most people didn't even really understand how subjective this concept of “cult” was and therefore it was very easy to cast a dark shadow on anything by using that word. This is largely because of the vague nature of the concept. <br /><br />One of the books that Jacque Fresco strongly recommends is “They Tyranny of Words” by Stuart Chase. If your interested in the book you can find it on Amazon.com for a decent price.<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Words-Stuart-Chase/dp/0156923947/ref=tmm_pap_title_popover?ie=UTF8&qid=1292870859&sr=1-1<br /><br />Anyway, one of the major things that Mr. Chase covers in the book is that words generally have many meanings and psychological effects. And rarely do you have any idea what someone actually means when they use a word to convey a concept. People's idea of what a word means is highly influenced by their culture and environment when they learned the word. There are all sorts of other factors with it. <br /><br />Take the word “Communism”. Say that word out loud in the United States and people get a negative feeling right away. Say the word “Capitalism” in Soviet Russia and you would of gotten the same reaction. There was a reason for that. It was that people on both of these sides had a vested interest to psychologically condition the people in their perspective countries to dislike the ideology of the other country. Thus, the “cold war”. <br /><br />I remember for years growing up during the “cold war” being told that Communism was bad. Though for years I never really understood why, or even what Communism was. This was also to the benefit of the people propagandizing Communism. If you say something is bad enough people will feel socially compelled to go along with that. I mean after all, if a lot of people say something is bad it MUST be bad right? Especially if they said it on TV!<br /><br />There are a lot of other words that have been “charged” by our culture to have negative connotations. Say the word “democrat” and this generally leads you to “liberal” which is considered synonymous with “socialist”. Which is in turn synonymous with “communist”. See how that works? And what is the word “communist” associated with? Well generally with “fascist”. So now by calling someone a democrat in some circles this also means they are a fascist. It conjures up images of gulags, Stalin, an evil oppressive regime that spies on you with the KGB and sends you to prison in Siberia. And that is EXACTLY what their opposition want. There is a similar set of reactions you get with “republican”. Generally means “rich”, “greedy”, etc. <br /><br />Now how do these associations measure up with reality? Without going into the Socialist/Communist tangent too much further, I would point out that all of the socialists I have ever spoken to, Paddy Shannon and Brian Moore being two of them, one of whom is a well known filmmaker, and the other is a former presidential candidate for the socialist party, neither of them had any support for the idea of fascism. Or totalitarianism. In fact, both of them had a great deal of respect for personal freedom. They just felt that people would have a lot more freedom and quality of life in a world where resources were shared equally rather then being owned by a few people who demand servitude out of anyone who wants to have access to what they need to survive. <br /><br />So what does all this mean to the concept of “cult”? <br /><br />The word “cult” has all sorts of negative attitudes associated with it. People immediately are taken to thoughts of the Branch Davidians who burned to death in Waco Texas in an alleged mass suicide. Or the Jones-town cult that drank “the kool-aid” to kill themselves. The bizarre practices of the church of Scientology,(A note: Not all Scientology followers are in the "church") Bohemian Grove, etc. The problem with the word cult is that it's definition is so loose that it is very easy to throw that word at anyone, or rather any group of people who hold a similar idea. We will get into that directly. But the word is not even always used in a negative light. A movie can have a “cult following”. And when someone makes that distinction they generally don't mean that there is some religious sect of people worshiping the film, or it's actors, etc. And sometimes it just refers to any group of people who happen to like a given concept, or thing. “The Kiss Army” affectionately refers to the “cult” that follows the rock band “Kiss”. They love their music and their image so collectively they have this in common. <br /><br />So, does this mean that all “Kiss” fans would drink Kool-aid and kill themselves with Cyanide if Gene Simmons asked them to? Or even most of them? Or even any? <br /><br />Does it mean that the “cult following” of the original “Highlander” film would be willing to burn themselves and their children to death if the writer Gregory Widen asked them to? <br /><br />(Note: I don't doubt that people have done some stupid things and associated it with either of these things. But that is individual crazy people, and is not facilitated by the groups in question. A crazy stalker killing someone to impress their object of obsession is obviously not the fault of the object in question.)<br /><br />So, lets break down what the word “cult” means. <br /><br />Cult:<br />–noun<br />1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.<br /><br />2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.<br /><br />3. the object of such devotion.<br /><br />4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.<br /><br />5. (From Sociology.) a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.<br /><br />6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.<br /><br />7. the members of such a religion or sect.<br /><br />8.any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.<br /><br />OK, looking at each of these individually, lets examine them and compare them to the Zeitgeist movement. <br /><br />1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.<br /><br />6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.<br /><br />7. the members of such a religion or sect.<br /><br />5. Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.<br /><br />The Zeitgeist movement does not advocate religion at all. In fact, if anything it is counter religion. Though being non-religious is not a condition of being involved in the Zeitgeist movement it is a predominantly atheist movement solely because we value the scientific method, not religion and not superstition as the arbiter of decision making. People are free to have their own beliefs. And so long as they are not advocating something theocratic, as in the idea that their religion should have a place in making laws for other people to be forced to follow, we don't care. <br /><br />In the world we propose, people would be free to pursue whatever religion they want. And as I pointed out during the Rudy Davis interview, we would not be making any laws nor would we ever advocate laws being made to force someone to be atheist. Or not to practice any religion. <br /><br />However, we also would not be willing to stand by and allow them to make laws to force other people to participate in their religious practices. We won't pass laws against women wearing scarves on their heads. But we also won't allow laws to be passed to force women to wear scarves on their heads. <br /><br />For some people not being willing to help them be fanatic alone means that we therefore want to take their freedom away. That is too bad but it is not logical. <br /><br />I have had to deal recently with someone who insists that because there are some sources quoted in the first Zeitgeist movie that quote from various pagan religions that we therefore advocate paganism. I had to explain to him (over and over) that the sources in the first film were to compare religions and how they were similar in an attempt to prove that Christianity itself was not anymore “divinely inspired” then any of of the pagan religions it copied. <br /><br />We have also had to deal with some people who have suggested that because Jiddu Krishnamurti was in the beginning of the second film that therefore we advocated the theosophical society. The theosophical society was yet another religious group that you could call a “cult”. And apparently they worshiped a god they called “Lucifer”. Jiddu Krishnamurti left the group and went on to pursue philosophy on his own. The problem with these never ending distinctions is they of course only quote the ones that are helpful to their quest to prove we are some sort of evil sun worshiping cult. <br /><br />For example, the first Zeitgeist film starts with a recording of a devout Buddhist named Trungpa Ripoche. Are we therefore a Buddhist movement? <br /><br />Among the sources of the first Zeitgeist film is also “The King James Version of the Holy Bible” We also frequently quote Martin Luther King Jr. and obviously we are not a Christian movement. <br /><br />The references to religion in the Zeitgeist movement are for the purpose of showing that all religions are questionable. And false institutions. And that superstition is irrelevant. And generally founded on nonsense. If we were some cult trying to get people to worship Lucifer, or advocate the occult it would be somewhat counter-productive to state that all religions are BS. (And I don't mean bad science). And to encourage people not to worship anything. Much less Lucifer. <br /><br />I also had to explain (over and over) that the first film is not relevant to the Venus Project or the Zeitgeist Movement. Jacque Fresco himself although atheist does not endorse the first film. If you want proof of that you can find it on my website during my interview with him in Florida that I have uploaded to YouTube. <br /><br />He kept insisting that since the first Zeitgeist film had occult or allegedly Luciferian authors in it's list of sources that therefore our movement was based on satanic ideas. Finally, I point blanked the individual and asked them where in the Zeitgeist Orientation guide (or any publication talking about the movement or the Venus project) that it suggested that members of the Zeitgeist Movement venerated Lucifer or suggested that people should? He of course could not find that anywhere. This would be because we are not a religious movement and do not suggest anyone be religious. Ever. If our goal was to spread Lucifer worship it would of been pretty easy to state that. <br /><br />So concluding this part, the Zeitgeist movement is not a religion. Does not advocate a religion. Does not encourage religious practices. Has no rituals. Or ceremonies. We obviously don't have any “sacred ideology” and do not have any “sacred symbols” because we don't believe in the concept of anything being “sacred” because we don't believe in religion. And that basically disqualifies it from all of the negative connotations that are generally brought up when using the world “cult” in the derogatory. <br /><br />So what about this one?<br /><br />2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.<br /><br />A lot of people in TZM do admire Jacque Fresco for his work. Nobody is building any shrines to him. Nobody believes he is God. Or mystical. I know people who admire Muhammad Ali for his boxing prowess. That doesn't mean they worship him. So, religion again is out of the way here. <br /><br />But as the definition provides a non-religious example in the “physical fitness cult” we come to the non-negative connotations of the word “cult”. Being devoted to physical fitness is not a bad thing. Being a “Kiss” fan is not a bad thing. This is where the word gets very subjective. Because you could say neo-nazis are basically the cult that venerates Adolph Hitler and his racist ideology. And obviously that is not a good thing. But it's still not religious. <br /><br />But when you really look at this closely, cults seem to be everywhere. <br /><br />The Republican Party. The Democratic Party. The Socialist Party. (In fact, just about every political party could be considered a “cult”. )<br /><br />Labor Unions. The Feminist movement. The civil rights movement. Any organization that advocates certain principles. Hell, the Salvation Army is a “cult” by that condition. Charitable organizations are cults by that definition. The list goes on and on and on. <br /><br />The reason we run into trouble, is as demonstrated in “The tyranny of words” there are often multiple meanings and multiple spins on any word or concept. <br /><br />The Zeitgeist movement like any other group that suggests a certain ideology has people who oppose that ideology and seek to therefore actively oppose it. And propaganda is a powerful tool for defaming an ideology. So very much like the word “communist” being used to attack socialists, the word “cult” is used to attack us. Only it's worse. Because anything can be a “cult” if more then one person is interested in it.<br /><br />So, by this definition. Allow me to direct your attention to a few “cults” out there. <br /><br />The anti-conspiracy cult. We can use the Conspiracy Science forum users as an example. A group of people who collectively feel strongly about a certain set of ideals. Are very abusive to people who oppose those ideas. In fact they spend hours and hours of their lives stalking into the personal lives of people who advocate what they oppose in order to defame them. <br /><br />The Free Market Capitalism cult. Some have called it the “Cult of Ayn Rand”. Again a group of people who collectively feel strongly about a certain set of ideals. Are very abusive to people who oppose those ideas. <br /><br />Here is the difference. Since I have a habit of being fair where those who call us a “cult” do not. I do not believe that either of these groups has rituals, or a specific religious belief. Though they can both be rather fanatical to the point of being irrational. I don't see either of them passing out Kool-aid with cyanide in it to end their lives in protest of a world where some people believe in conspiracy theories or don't think the Free Market is a good solution either. <br /><br />But when these people try and make that distinction when it comes to us they take advantage of this association of words to suggest that we are some sort of “Jones-town cult drinking the Kool-aid.” <br /><br />Even though we as a movement hold no religious beliefs at all. <br /><br />Finally:<br /><br />8. Any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.<br /><br />In Zeitgeist Addendum, Peter points out that science took us from believing that demons caused disease, to modern medicine. And obviously we do not advocate methods that are unscientific. <br /><br />While I have seen some members of the Zeitgeist Movement who are against vaccination. Or are Vegan, or whatever none of those ideas are held by the movement itself. If vaccinations do not work then science will prove that. If being Vegan is the way then science will prove that. But neither of these things are a belief that is currently advocated by the Zeitgeist Movement or the Venus Project. <br /><br />In conclusion:<br /><br />It is very easy to call any group of people who hold a similar ideology a “cult”. It is also something that because of it's subjective nature can be difficult to disprove. But as I have demonstrated in this article the world “cult” has many definitions that refer to groups of people for different reasons.<br /><br />The “religious cult” does not apply. <br /><br />The concept of a “social cult” or group of people who happen to hold the same ideology or admire certain people for holding that ideology applies to a LOT of organizations. And is not by any means directly related to the idea of the “religious cult”. “Kiss” fans come from all different religions, from cultures all over the world. And members of the Zeitgeist Movement tend not to be religious, and do also come from cultures all over the world. <br /><br />So if someone wanted to say that there was a “cult following” of Jacque Fresco they could say the same thing of the “cult of Barack Obama”. Or the “cult of Ghandi”. Or the “cult of the civil rights movement” that tended to admire Martin Luther King. These distinctions can be made just as easily as the “cult of Adolph Hitler”. <br /><br />In essence, the word “cult” is so flexible in what it means that anyone who has really considered it should have a hard time taking anyone seriously who tries to use it as an attack. <br /><br />As stated in Wikipedia:<br /><br />“The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is considered subjective.”<br /><br />Subjective, meaning that it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people and is therefore not in of itself a concept that is solid in it's foundations.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-zeitgeist-movement-cult.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-419661091700124404Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:09:00 +00002010-11-16T10:18:06.264-08:00Thoughts on the Rudy Davis interview.This conversation jumped around a lot on different tangents so I am going to try and organize different things that we talked about here. So what is in this blog is not really going to be in chronological order as to how the conversation actually took place. <br />Is The Venus Project or the Zeitgeist Movement advocating an “evil” system?<br />Mr. Davis made a YouTube video wherein he stated that the Venus Project system was an “evil system”. He went on to describe a few different times and in a few different ways during my interview with him how this was the case. In this blog I intend to go over a lot of the logical fallacies in his argument and to help the listeners understand the various ways Mr. Davis was conditioned to have the responses he did. <br /><br />His reasons for believing this:<br /><br />1. We were putting “the sovereignty of machines” over the “spirit of man”. He went on to elaborate his beliefs on the human soul. <br /><br />2. “Machines should bow to man, not man to Machines.”<br /><br />I went on to compare machines being used in decision making to a thermostat making the decision to turn on either your furnace or your air conditioner. <br /><br />Now this is a very important point that people when hearing about the Venus Project often misunderstand. But it it is very important that we are very clear about what role machines have in decision making. <br /><br />In order to understand this, first of all we have to look at what role we want any form of “government” to have in our lives. We want a world where there is no state ruling over people themselves. This is an extremely important point. No machine will be telling you who you can marry, what religion you will be part of, or what news you will see on Television. (Though it is possible obviously that the systems involved could take control over the air waves temporarily if there was an alert of danger in a given area.) Any limitations that a machine would suggest for human behavior would be based on available resources. Any any such limits to human activity based on a shortage of resources would be treated as a problem to be solved. Say there is not enough food in a given area for the population. The computer would alert us to the shortage and suggest that moving into that area or having children in that area would not be prudent until the food scarcity issue could be solved. <br /><br />So when you take away the state's role in doing this all that is left is the state's power over infrastructure. Obviously we don't want man doing this either. <br /><br />The analogy I usually give is the example of a “Department of Sewer” to deal with maintenance of the sewer systems within a given community. Directorship of this department would presumably be given to a locally elected official. Who would generally be influenced by companies that aided him financially in his campaign. People who had a problem with their local sewer would have to go to some sort of meeting to bring the problem to the attention of this elected official. A great deal of bureaucracy and red tape would likely be involved. Then the official in charge of this system would eventually be inclined to give a no-bid contract to a big corporation to fix the problem in the sewer. (One that likely donated to his campaign). The company and the people working for them would be inclined to make the job take as long as possible, using resources to fix it that would not necessarily be the best. After all, they want to be back fixing this sewer again in the relatively near future. <br /><br />OR<br /><br />Our sewer system can be equipped with sensors that detect a problem when and where it happens. Deploy a robot that does not belong to a union, will not be taking lunch breaks. Or having the job take longer to ensure it's hourly wage for the task is profitable, and will use the best possible materials available with the intention for any such repair to last as long as possible. No one will profit off of the repair of the sewer so there is no incentive to do the job inefficiently. And hopefully no human even needs to be bothered by the entire issue. <br /><br />In effect, what we are talking about is automating the tasks previously dealt with by conventional governments that people don't need to be bothered with. The system would be transparent so that if there was an issue people could be notified so that the issue could be solved. I stumbled on this definition on Wikipedia. It's called <br /><br />Cyberocracy: <br />Cyberocracy describes a form of government or an element of a government that rules by the effective use of information. The exact nature of a cyberocracy is largely speculative as currently there have been no cybercractic governments, however, a growing number prototype cybercratic elements can currently be found in many developed nations.<br /><br />The fundamental feature of a cyberocracy would be the rapid transmission of relevant information from the source of a problem to the people in a position able to fix said problem, most likely via a system of interconnected computer networks and automated information sorting software, with human decision makers only be called into use in the case of unusual problems, problem trends, or through an appeal process pursued by an individual. <br /><br />Cyberocracy is thefunctional antithesis oftraditional bureaucracies which sometimes notoriously suffer from fiefdomism, slowness, and a list of other unfortunate qualities. Ultimately a cyberocracy may use administrative AIs if not an AI as head of state forming a Machine Rulegovernment.<br /><br />Now that last line would scare most people. But again, we are talking about a government wherein the concept of “rule” is extremely limited. And in the end, we the humans still have the power to alter that machine as needed. The benefits of this are many. Including if such a machine was tampered with, that “corruption” would be traceable to it's source. Whereas when a politician is corrupted in some fashion it is rarely possible to determine the exact source. And in our current system politicians being corrupted by monetary donations to their campaigns is accepted as the way it is. And any notion of telling corporations that they should not have the right to bribe politicians is considered a threat to freedom. Meanwhile, the rest of us from childhood on are brainwashed with this notion that this system functions perfectly. With corporations motivated by their own self interest and profit choosing what candidates we get to learn about. And what spin will be applied to make their agendas seem in their best interest. <br /><br />Lets scale this issue down a bit. Lets say a fellow has a personal Resource Based Economy:<br />1. His food is produced through an automated farming system.<br />2. His energy is produced via renewable and clean methods. He has a solar array, and some wind power.<br />3. His heating and cooling is handled by a Geo-thermal system.<br />4. Because all of his worldly needs are handled automatically he is free to spend his time pursuing education, art, or whatever he takes an interest in. He could and should also become familiar with whatever technical knowledge he needs to maintain his personal ecology. So that he can fix any problems that his automated system cannot handle. <br /><br />All of this is maintained and monitored by a central computer system in his home. He gets to determine what sort of crops he wants his system to make, but he is guided by information on what crops will yield the best results. And have the most nutritional value. <br /><br />The central computer system monitors all of the automated systems within his home environment. It reports any possible shortages or catastrophes that it cannot account for so that the human in this equation can deal with those issues. <br />Now... does this machine RULE the person in question? <br />Clearly not. <br /><br />We touched on the issue of a system that has no prisons or laws. He used examples such as child molestation and rape to illustrate that not all crimes are related to scarcity and the monetary system. I asked him what he believed the cause of such things were. I asked him if he thought it was Satan. He had previously stated that he believed in the “inherently sinful nature of man”. <br /><br />“I believe that mankind is a sinful creature.” <br /><br />He admitted that he believed that a lot of it had to do with the environment and the things we allow in society. But then repeated that if we do not look to a God almighty, something higher then man it was difficult if not impossible to get out of that state of being “inherently sinful”. <br /><br />This is a common problem when talking to non-atheists about what we suggest. First of all it implies that mankind is evil because there is some boogeyman named Satan who runs around whispering in our ears convincing us to do evil things. <br /><br />I remember one of the things I said in response to this later in the interview is that mankind does not need a “Satan” to commit evil acts and is perfectly capable of doing so without any supernatural being telling us to. That in fact mankind tends to use Satan as a “cop out” or “excuse” for actions that we as men and women should be taking responsibility for ourselves. Ironically I had originally heard this method of thinking from an article written by a Jewish Rabbi. <br /><br />Furthermore, attributing behavior to the supernatural kind of puts us in a position like the “War on terror”. Since we will never defeat “Satan” there will forever be this war for your soul going on that will allow people to justify acts of tyranny in the name of “winning”. <br /><br />Even many Christian friends of mine agree that focusing so much on Satan is not a good approach. Christianity in theory is supposed to be about love, not hatred for Satan. And that if you have chosen to be a good person solely out of fear of hell or Satan you are not exactly acting on “free will” and there is nothing genuine about your good nature. Anyone being coerced can be convinced to behave a certain way. It's when it is a free choice absent of fear that it actually means something. <br /><br />It is often a concern that religious people have that Atheists cannot have morals without a “God Almighty” or being “God Fearing”. And therefore our system of identifying behaviors at their root cause absent any supernatural notions would be frightening to a religious person. Because then rather then having Satan to blame for their “sins” they might have to actually take responsibility for their environment and it's effects on their own behavior. <br /><br />Next Mr. Davis was concerned that we would make preaching religion “illegal” or act to prevent him from spreading the word of his religion. I really have no idea where he got the idea that we would do this. But because of the large Atheist population within the Zeitgeist Movement it doesn't surprise me. <br /><br />The official position of the Venus Project according to Jacque Fresco in his “Living on Purpose” interview, in a TVP society, all religions would have equal time in our communication mediums and equal access to resources the same as anyone else. We do not advocate telling anyone what beliefs they can and cannot hold. So long as their beliefs do not include feeling justified in acting to control the lives of others in pursuit of their religious beliefs. Theocracy, or government based in religion would not be permitted as we advocate a society governed by reason and the scientific method. <br /><br />So if a women freely chooses to wear a scarf covering her head nobody would stop her in the society we suggest. But on the same token we would not stand by and permit a woman being punished by anyone for freely choosing not to participate in that tradition. <br /><br />This position of free choice in regards to religion is not just about the morality of allowing free choice. It is because we understand that coercion and force are not an effective means to create social change or understanding anyway. If you ban religion it would just go underground, and even gain a new allure being “taboo” or “forbidden”. <br /><br />Throughout history the negative impacts of superstition are slowly but steadily eroded through education and science, and far more effectively then actively acting to attack certain beliefs. We have a similar feeling about other lifestyle choices. Including the use of drugs, unhealthy food, etc.<br /> <br />Later on in the conversation I again have to try and point blank Mr. Davis with the question of why TVP is “evil”. He didn't want to outright admit that the only reason he felt that we were “evil” was because we were not Christian. I asked him pointedly more then once:<br /><br />“Is TZM/TVP evil because there are a lot of Atheists involved?”<br /><br />“Is TZM/TVP evil because we are not Christian?”<br /><br />“Is it because we don't believe in God that we are evil?”<br /><br />He always answered no to either of these questions yet the context of what he would say in response to that question always seemed to sound like he believed both of those things. <br /><br />One of the things that he stated made him feel we were evil is because in his estimation we did not believe in a “right or wrong” or even the concept of “evil” itself. <br /><br />I pointed out to him that we would not spend so much time in TZM exposing the “evils” of political corruption, wars, abuses, etc if we did not believe in right and wrong. If we did not believe in right and wrong what exactly would motivate us to change the world in the first place? <br /><br />He then countered by asking “Who gets to define then what is evil? I will be looking for the answer to that question to a higher creator, and you would only be looking to what society determined was good or evil.” <br /><br />It is often a pitfall that we see many religious people fall into that morality cannot arise out of anything absent a belief in the supernatural. I would counter this by saying that in fact morality itself in it's most basic sense is actually quite logical. Absent any belief in any deity. <br /><br />Examples:<br />1. It is logical to oppose murder. Because I don't want to be murdered. Nor would I want anyone to murder anyone I cared about.<br />2. It is logical to oppose rape for the same reason.<br />3. It is logical to oppose greed, because greed has serious impacts on the people in a community, and I could very well be one of those people negatively affected by it.<br />I could go on with examples like these for pages and pages, but it really amounts to this, the “Golden Rule” of Christianity is logical. <br /><br />“Treat others as you would have them treat you.” <br /><br />If everyone practiced it is completely reasonable that regardless of where mankind heard the idea from even if it was from his “Noodly Goodness” the world would quite rationally be a better place for everyone living here. I don't have to believe that Jesus said that to see the inherent logic in such a statement. And in fact many other religions have a similar rule or one that is so all encompassing that it would create vast tranquility if it were practiced. <br /><br />This is completely logical. And by no means unique to Christianity. Lets take a look:<br /><br />Buddhism: 560 BC, From the Udanavarga 5:18- "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself."<br /> <br />Judaism: 1300 BC, from the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18- "Thou shalt Love thy neighbor as thyself."<br /> <br />Hinduism: 3200 BC, From the Hitopadesa- "One should always treat others as they themselves wish to be treated."<br /><br />Zoroastrianism: 600 BC, From the Shast-na-shayast 13:29- "Whatever is disagreeable to yourself, do not do unto others."<br /><br />Confucianism: 557 BC, From the Analects 15:23- "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."<br /><br />Wicca: Do whatever you want so long as you harm none.<br /><br />Christianity: 30 AD, From the King James Version , 7:12- "Whatsoever ye would that others should do to you, do ye even so to them."<br /><br />It's interesting to note that this concept has found it's way to into so many completely unrelated religions from completely unrelated cultures. <br />Could this be because such a stance on how to conduct one's self is rather logical? And that the more people behave this way the more likely you will yourself will be treated well? <br /><br />Mr. Davis really emphasized that it was critical that people believe in a human soul in order to be moral. And that it was our lack of belief in the soul that meant we were “evil”. <br /><br />He again thought we intended to “stomp on the human soul”. So much of our problem came from him fearing that we intended to take things from him. The propaganda machine that was used to make people think Communism is evil causes people frequently to knee-jerk that any system that suggests that we share resources must also be a coercive entity. <br /><br />We also touched on the concern most people who think that their guns and their ability to use violence protects them. This generally leads to the reaction to be concerned that we are going to take their guns. <br /><br />I have pointed out in previous radio shows the ownership of the firearms that the average citizen has in the United States would in no way save us from a fascist takeover anyway. <br /><br />I have also pointed out that it is not that we would make firearms illegal. It's a matter of working on the environment to make the ownership of firearms “obsolete”. Not taking your guns. Working on making it so nobody needs them anymore. And even then, nobody is going to come to your door and take your guns. The point is that violence and force are not just wrong. They are not effective in actually effecting change. If they were the presence of guns in our society would end crime. <br /><br />I did find it dubious but sadly not surprising that Mr. Davis, a devout Christian would also value the teachings of Ayn Rand. We get into that more as the interview goes on. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Resource Based Economics vs. Free Market Economics:</span><br /><br />Like many other Free Market advocates, Mr. Davis suggested that the real problem is not money, but the “FIAT” money system that is the problem. That if we went to an “honest” money system (a money system where the money is based on an actual tangible resource, like “The Gold standard”) that everything would be fine or at least a lot better. <br /><br />One of the major problems with this kind of reasoning is something I wish I had brought up during the interview because at a later point in the conversation he goes on to say that all of the great technological innovations and infrastructure that has been developed in the United States was thanks to Capitalism. He as many other Free Market Capitalists tends to leave out a very pertinent point. <br /><br />All of the marvels he is talking about as far as the great achievements of Capitalism were brought about using the fractional reserve “FIAT” money system! It was only through printing money out of thin air that our society within a Capitalist system was able to produce the capital necessary to do things such as the Hoover Dam. In a fixed economy the money to take on immense tasks such as these simply would not exist unless a great many people were willing to make huge sacrifices in their lifestyles. All expansion within a fixed or sound money economy is limited by the amount of money within that economy and the amount that is still in circulation beyond what is needed for everyone to individually sustain themselves. <br /><br />As I brought up in one of my previous shows and blogs “Questions for Capitalists” one of the important questions I always ask that they never have an answer for is how would they implement their system? Would all of the people who made their immense fortunes in “FIAT” currency have to give up their fake money? Or would they be allowed to transfer all of that into the new “sound” or “honest” currency? <br /><br />Couple this with total deregulation including getting rid of any regulations that stop monopolies and what would stop the rich from simply owning the world? Imagine a world with only so much money wherein the game starts with 5% of the world's population already being in possession of 40% of all the money in existence? Where any money loaned to a new business would have to come out of the hands of one of those 5%? (Which if they are going to create a competitive business is not exactly in their best interest. Would you loan someone money to start a business that would take business away from your own?) Even with the fractional reserve lending system allowing new businesses to take out loans only 1/3 of new businesses live out the first year. And only 1/3 of that number make it past four! This would create equality how? Can you imagine playing monopoly where two out of the five players owned 40% of the money in the game? <br /><br />(Yes, I can hear the Free Market Capitalists already saying “But wait...you cannot have a monopoly in a true Free Market!” Another one of the near religious and completely irrational beliefs held by most Austrian Economists. And one of the major reasons that the Austrian school is not in fact held in very high regard by even main stream economists. It simply does not make sense.)<br /><br />The only way they could ever implement such a system is if all of the assets of the rich were liquidated and everyone started on the same footing. Owning nothing and having nothing. The rich would obviously never go along with that. And they own all the guns. It would be far easier to convince them to help us build a world where everyone's standard of living is excellent. Which is why we feel our plan is far more realistic. We advocate liquidating assets and then everyone having a great lifestyle. And we can move in that direction whether the rich want to go along with it or not. We can develop communities that are not dependent on money. Trying to play the money game that is already rigged is like trying to ice skate uphill. <br />He went on to repeat that theory that most of mankind's problems were directly linked to FIAT currency more then once. To the point it was like a mantra. And that it was corruption, not money itself that was the problem. The problem is, that money is the cause of the corruption in the first place. But he is a Christian and believes that if we believe that there is a supernatural entity that will punish us for being immoral or greedy then everything will be fine. This reminded me of something that a Thecorat said to me once that Capitalism works a lot better when we have Christianity to guide people morally. He was right. But the fact that we have to all agree that such an entity, that we cannot prove the exsistence of , to motivate us not to be corrupt in the first place means that the monetary system being hinged on religion to function is doomed to failure. <br /><br />He also felt that the wealth gap problems of huge pockets of poor compared to the tiny pockets of rich would be greatly reduced in an honest money system. (Despite the fact that even when money was made out of precious metals entirely this reality was present, and in fact has been present in every monetary system ever including the versions of Communism that used money.)<br /><br />We discussed how the elite own the media. And I asked him a question that stumped him for several seconds of silence:<br /><br />“In an honest money system what would prevent someone from owning the media?”<br />After a very long and uncomfortable pause the best he could come up with was that this problem would still exist but to a much lesser extent. <br /><br />The entire concept that free market economics depends on when it comes to preventing monopolies is the notion that competition will prevent them. But in a closed money economy as we already addressed it would be far more difficult to get loans. And if the elite wanted to be sure that nobody else owned the media all they would have to do is be sure that banking institutions did not loan money to anyone who wanted to create their own media company. And in a “Free society” as they project there could be no regulations that would prevent them from excluding anyone from loans. <br /><br />We move on in the conversation to where Rudy asks:<br /><br />“Do you feel that people who work harder deserve to have more in life?”<br /><br />I answered with:<br /><br />“Actually, we believe it is better to simply find a way that nobody has to work hard anymore.”<br /><br />The conversation that comes about from this is interesting. <br />But one of the things that popped up in my head afterward was that the people who make the most money actually almost inevitably are the ones doing the least actual “work”. The CEO of a company does not do anywhere near as much actual work in a given day as the common factory worker or construction worker. Yet the CEO gets great pay, benefits, vacation time. Generally a lifestyle far beyond anything the average worker will see in their whole lives! How does this happen? Because people can privately own the means of production, factories, infrastructure etc. that make the things that we require to survive. And by simply having a piece of paper called a deed they then have huge power over large groups of people who want the products produced or want to find work producing those products. <br /><br />Sure a CEO goes to board meetings. Does paperwork. Answers phones. I would trade that for a day on the job site of a major construction company any day. Not to mention the health problems associated with doing such back breaking work everyday. <br />Ironically, after this point, he states that he cannot imagine an environment where he would not want to work. He goes on to elaborate that people would want to work to better themselves. Which is PRECISELY why we feel that the work that we could not or would not automate would still be done in a Resource Based Economy! <br />I pointed out that the greatest inventors in our time actually were not motivated by money. I used the example of the man who created the Polio vaccine. When asked who the vaccine belonged to, he answered “The people of the world.” <br />I also pointed out that your choices of what you would like to work on in this monetary system are also seriously limited by what you can make money doing. He agreed that this was unfortunate but did not really have a solution. <br /><br />He went on to read a quote from Andrew Jackson, a hero to many members of the freedom movement for his opposition to central banking fiat currency systems. One of the problems I often see with this is the same problem with people who venerate many of the slave owning founding fathers. For all of Andrew Jackson's “freedom fighting” he also signed into law the “Indian Removal Act” which set the United States policy in place for the genocide of the native peoples who had the misfortune of living on land that the rich aristocrats of this country wanted for themselves. (Something I might add that “freedom loving” author Ayn Rand also completely justified, not only against the Native Americans but also the Arabs of the middle east. That any less developed culture did not deserve it's resources.) <br /><br />We talk a bit more about Ayn Rand. He didn't like the term “the rich people” and suggested the term “the producers and achievers”. I point out that the notion of hoarding wealth when people are starving doesn't sound very Christian. And I quote Jesus saying that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to get into heaven. <br /><br />This is another one of the critical problems wherein Capitalism and Christianity don't seem to be calling from the same playbook. When you watch “The Century of Self” and “Psywar” they touch on the propaganda campaign that was launched to make Capitalism seem to go hand in hand with the principles in the bible. One of the things that come to my mind when I think about this was when Michael Moore in his film “Capitalism: A love story” where he dubs over the scene in a movie with Jesus in it where this mythical figure refuses to cure someone because they have a per-existing condition. And suggests that he will have to pay out of pocket for treatment. <br /><br />I asked Mr. Davis how much work Jesus asked the people that he fed with a couple of pieces of bread and a couple of fish (magically) to work for that food. <br />Mr. Davis went on to explain that he did not feel that any such message would be to suggest that people should be lazy. And that nobody should get anything for free. He placed a great deal of emphasis on the need for everyone to be working. He also seemed to project the “lazy” concept onto anyone who might be in a position to seek charity. This is another problem that comes out of the Capitalist mentality. Particularly if your going to follow Ayn Rand's method of thinking. That anyone who is poor or in need obviously deserves their suffering because they are not working hard enough. Otherwise they would not be poor or suffering. <br /><br />This idea of course does not take into account that in our monetary system many people who are not lazy at all are still not in a position to make money. In order to survive in a monetary system people must find a way to be useful to other people to survive. The problem with this is that it is not in the best interest of someone to be dependent on anyone else. Hence, needing labor or the requirement of someone to have a job working for you is not in your best interest. Particularly when profit is your motive. And with technology advancing as it is the system is finding ways to eliminate jobs, not create more. So in other words, as society progresses there are going to be a lot more people who are not lazy whatsoever yet still cannot find employment. And cannot find capital to start a business of their own that is extremely likely to fail anyway. (Especially if we found ourselves in a sound money system again.) <br /><br />We got into a conversation about how actual Communism and Socialism would work and how the soviet example was not the correct example of either. I brought up the example of collectively owned businesses wherein the workers themselves all own an equal share and therefore have an equal interest in the profit of a business and the well being of a company and the people who work in it. <br /><br />His answer to that was to bring up a story from one of Ayn Rand's books wherein such a company existed and failed. In the story people in this business would demand that profits from the company be given to those who were in need rather then those who had worked harder. Examples such as one worker's child needing braces, and another worker's grandmother having a disease were used. And that it eventually destroyed the company. <br /><br />“Atlas Shrugged” was a work of fiction. And the author in question had a certain agenda for the stories in the book. So of course anything collectively owned that proved that the workers could be the ones in charge of their own destiny as opposed to the “Producers and Achievers” (who actually end up doing the least amount of work should end up with the majority of the profits of a given company) would have to fail in one of her stories. Any notion that people could work together to collectively be better off rather then agreeing to be slaves for a few elites is dangerous to someone like Rand. <br /><br />Then he went on again saying that hopefully these “Producers and Achievers” would be Christian and would therefore use their reward to benefit everyone else. Once again:<br /><br />Mark 10:25<br />“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle then it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god.”<br /><br />This seems self defeating. Because even the bible itself doesn't seem to indicate that such a thing is likely. But in a serious contradiction, Mr. Davis venerates the “Producers and Achievers” as if they are entitled to have more while other people have less. The problem is according to the bible, there are not going to be too many “Producers and Achievers” in heaven. <br /><br />These “Producers and Achievers” also get to determine who is President or holds public office. Because they have the money to decide who is heard or seen. <br />We then talked about how the monetary system seems to hold back certain technologies because they would render certain markets obsolete. He stated that he acknowledged that such things were due to “evil” and corrupt behavior. <br /><br />So again, for Capitalism to work, people have to believe it is “evil” and that they will be punished by some entity who has not done anything tangible on this earth for centuries if ever, to prevent behavior like keeping electric cars out of the mainstream because you don't want to lose your money gained through the oil trade. <br />I remember pointing that out to him again, when he suggested that what we propose is “too idealistic”. The notion that his system will only work if Christianity is the glue that holds it together. He didn't really have a reply to that point. <br /><br />There was a lot of repetition and tangents throughout this conversation. And a lot of my regular listeners were chomping at the bit wanting to call in to debate with Rudy. But in the end one of the major reasons I wanted to have this conversation with Rudy was to prove a few key points. If I had attacked Rudy and his beliefs we would not of exchanged any information. If the conversation was full of personal attacks no real value would of come out of the conversation. This is one of the reasons that Jacque tells stories about how he handled his mother's racism, or the racism of the KKK. This conversation was an important example that we cannot reach each other as people if we cannot freely and honestly exchange our beliefs. <br /><br />Even in this very positive conversation I doubt that Mr. Davis was highly impacted by what I said. But I can say that I guarantee that seeds were planted by this conversation that he will not forget. Some time ago I had a guest on and one of my listeners suggested that the guest would never “get it”. I pointed out that many people will not “get it”. But at least they can know we are not enemies. And that goal I believe was achieved with this show.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/thoughts-on-rudy-davis-interview.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-2343257759434599848Thu, 21 Oct 2010 01:24:00 +00002010-10-21T15:37:42.361-07:00No I mean it. The economy is failing.(This is an editorial and somewhat of a rant. Be forewarned)<br /><br />People seem to wonder why I am as passionate about this direction as I am. They ask me why I have lost my faith in the monetary system. <br /><br />I live in Michigan as many of you know. Technological unemployment is up close and personal. As the auto industry and other manufacturing that was done here is drying up due to automation or outsourcing the service sector exactly as Peter suggested it would is drying up as it is being overwhelmed, and slowly also being automated. I was at a department store just the other day and saw as now the self-scan lines take up half of the check-out lanes in the store. These used to be manned by actual people who were depending on those jobs. <br /><br />Not long ago, there was a video store in the area. It closed down a few months ago. I had a roommate who used to work there and lost their job because of it. A lot of people blame Netflix for this, and services like it. (Not to mention illegal downloading). But I saw at that same department store, another reason. Technology has allowed them to automate an entire video store! You slide your credit or debit card and choose from a long list of new releases which is what most people rent anyway and it spits out your DVD. If your late it just charges your card. If you don't pay it after $20 of late fees the DVD is yours to keep. <br /><br />But remember. According to Austrian Economists technological unemployment is a fallacy! After all their books from the 40's or older say so! <br /><br />Because clearly, the author of "Economics in one lesson" had some level of comprehension of the notion that they might automate an entire video store in a device no larger then a soda pop vending machine. (Actually he would not of even considered the existence of plastic discs that contain entire films in the first place.)<br /><br />Or that people were going to go on a computer and order a video online, (wait.. no computers, no internet either when he was writing that book) or that they could steal entire films in a few minutes without even ever physically taking anything.<br /><br />They always claim that somehow more jobs are being created by any technological innovation but I don't see the jobs lost by video stores closing down all over the country and all of the jobs associated with them being replaced by building some vending machines. <br /><br />And there are obviously no new jobs created by the making of these automated kiosks that are replacing cashiers in stores. <br /><br />Where are the jobs that are supposedly created by fully automating the auto manufacturing plants? Maybe a couple more technicians needed. But that is nothing compared to all of the people put out of work. <br /><br />I remember going to the "Work First" program here in Michigan. It's a program for the unemployed who are seeking assistance from the government. I was not surrounded by welfare moms. I was surrounded by people from all walks of life. Defeated and ashamed blue collar workers. White collar workers who were in a total state of shock. The guy sitting next to me told me his story. They always tell you to get educated. He had a degree in business and engineering. His company told him that they were expanding to other countries and they needed him to help people in other countries learn his job. Well, expanding actually turned into downsizing and outsourcing. They fired him and closed down his local plant. And now he was at the welfare office too. <br /><br />He was educated. Hard working. Why did he lose his job? Was it because of regulations? Was it because of taxes? Or was it because as a paid professional here in the United States he would make ten times or more what the people he trained to do his job in Mexico would be paid? And actually expect to maybe have a vacation? Health care? Retirement? <br /><br />Politicians make me laugh when they say they are going to create jobs. The Republicans/Conservatives say that if they cut taxes and de-regulate that the jobs will come back here. What happens instead almost without fail is that businesses use the new money they suddenly have to help them build their infrastructure in countries with little to nothing in the way of minimum wage and no unions. <br /><br />I have told the story many times of how my friend Raphael from Mexico explained that what these companies really want is a work force that is willing to accept what desperate people will accept. They don't want a worker who holds his head high, and might actually have the gull to request that he or she works in an environment that is safe. They don't want workers who ask for the day off to see their son's baseball game or their daughter's dance recital. They don't want workers who would like to have a decent lifestyle when they could have workers who are so desperate from their circumstances that even a below poverty lifestyle is slightly better then the starving to death lifestyle they used to have before the big companies came to "do them a favor". <br /><br />I just got done talking to Alberto, a Zeitgeist Movement member from Mexico. He is actually going to be on an upcoming radio show and we are going to talk about outsourcing and the real situation in Mexico. And what he told me is SURPRISE! Now that the capitalists have found labor markets where people are even worse off then the people of Mexico now they are moving there! Imagine that! Does this mean the people of Mexico need to be "more competitive"? <br /><br />Telling us we need to be more competitive translates into we need to be willing to live in even closer to slave like conditions then the other guy. We are now to the point that competition in the labor market has nothing to do with being the better worker, but being the more desperate worker. They don't care about work ethic. They will MAKE you have a work ethic by threatening your family with poverty. <br /><br />How long do people really think this can go on? Do they really think these companies won't replace the slave workers they have now with machines the moment it is cheaper? <br /><br />Today on Facebook I talked to one of my one time listeners who made the statement to me "Have you considered getting a job???" with three ? at the end of it for the sake of being dramatic. <br /><br />I was talking to him in Skype about it, and he apologized, but like most people who hear about my situation everyone is always full of advice that I have already followed, and suggestions I have already acted on. We are so conditioned that "Anyone can get a job..." that we really believe it. And when someone says they can't get one it must mean they are lazy or picky, or have not thought of something yet. During the course of the argument he asked me for my city and state, fully intent on proving me wrong. I gave him the information and about a half hour later he messages me back saying "Man...your right...it is really bleak out there..."<br /><br />Yes, I have thought about moving. One cannot do this when they have no money. <br /><br />Yes, I have thought about getting a car to expand my work area. One cannot do this when they have no money. <br /><br />Yes, I have thought about child care. IF I am lucky enough to get a job at a fast food place and yes, I mean lucky I will first have to hope they can give me hours. Then afterward still not have enough money to pay the bills as half of my paycheck would go to a daycare center. <br /><br />Yes, I have thought about going to school. See previous statements about this being impossible when one has no money, no car, and no child care. <br /><br />I answer and re-answer the same questions about "Well did you do this? Did you do that?" and endure the same "Well you gotta do something man! You have to MAKE it happen!" as if I can snap my fingers and produce child care or a job. It's like they don't understand that people actually do become homeless because they have tried everything. And there is nothing left to try. <br /><br />My back is against the wall. And I laugh as people say that Jacque's theories on behavior are bullshit. Because I am watching it in my own home. Before my divorce things were fairly well balanced financially. We had enough of a surplus to cover things if a roommate fell on hard times and could not pay. Everyone got along reasonably well. If you bought food you were confident that nobody would eat something they did not buy. We would help each other when needed, and the roommates who had cars would do their best to be sure the ones who didn't have cars got where they needed to go. <br /><br />Then the divorce happened. And everything got scrambled. The surplus went away. And it happened right around the same time as an economic downturn. And I watched as everyone's attitude in the house changed. Theft of food that belonged to other roommates became common place. People started writing their names on things. That worked for a while, then stopped working. So we started putting food in our bedrooms. That stopped working. Someone actually came into my room and took food off of my nightstand! <br /><br />These are all people I could trust implicitly with twenty dollar bills laying around the house just six months earlier. And now they were breaking into my bedroom! These are not bad people. They came from decent neighborhoods. Not the ghetto. But it doesn't take long for money and the lack of it to ruin anyone. <br /><br />My roommates started asking me to lower their rent. I had to pull out the bills and physically show them that they were already only giving me enough to break even. And had only ever been giving me enough to break even. They started to resent me as if it was my fault they needed to pay rent. They numbed themselves to the reality of the situation which was that if they wanted to continue to have electricity, gas, and a roof over their heads that I needed the exact amount they were giving me and no less. This then strained our friendships. Everyone retreated into their rooms and rarely talked to one another. <br /><br />So then as I stated in my previous blog about this, a roommate got an offer she couldn't refuse to move back in with her father and live rent free, with her own car and a job provided for her. So she took the bus and left. Her boyfriend was kind enough to offer to stay long enough for me to find someone else. Then lost his Wal-Mart job the very next day. Because they didn't want to pay him disability when he was injured on the job. He is still here and trying to get something else, but in the meantime he is basically just using my utilities and eating my food. I still very much appreciate what he is trying to do but it is not making the situation any better. <br /><br />So, then we come to my next roommate. I have known him for about eight years. He has a sort of obnoxious personality. So even his twin brother who is also obnoxious in a completely different way will not help him whenever he finds himself homeless. We sometimes played video games together and he was literally light headed. We asked him why on voice chat and he revealed that he had not eaten in a day or so as the place he was staying at with his drunk mother rarely had food. <br /><br />So, for the second time in my life of knowing him I brought him into my home and gave him his own room. He tried for six whole months to get a job. He really was trying. It just honestly takes that long around here. And he even has a car. Though he did give himself certain "standards" like he wouldn't work fast food. Apparently the embarrassment of him mooching off of me for six months was not a dishonor to him but to work at McDonalds or another fast food place would of been. In any case he did get a job and was a good roommate for a while. But he also became the biggest culprit of food theft when things got tough. <br /><br />I had talked to him about the financial situation and he made it very clear to me he had no plans to move out anytime soon. He was shooting for maybe next year. The various times the topic came up he always told me he had no where to go and was very concerned that I might at some point kick him out. <br /><br />So then sometime last month I get a phone call from an apartment complex, they contacted me as his current landlord to see what kind of tenant he would be. <br /><br />This is how I find out he is considering moving out much sooner. Though when I talk to him about it he lies and says that he was just looking into it and did not intend to move out. Again... this is someone who was so appreciative of the help I was giving him just a few months earlier. He tries to assure me that it is likely he won't get accepted for the apartment anyway. And that he of course will give me at least two months notice before ever moving out. <br /><br />I would also take a moment to point out that this man goes to church regularly. And is very offended if anyone ever badmouths Christianity. He preaches to anyone will listen about Christ and how you should your life honestly and all that. <br /><br />So... today he comes to my room and with a very excited tone tells me he has great news. The great news is that his approval for his apartment went through and that he will be leaving in ten days...<br /><br />I ask him how this is "great news" and he acts confused as if I am supposed to think it is really great that someone who was contributing about 40% of the household income has just informed me that I have 10 days to find a way to replace that income or lose my home. This young man read the book "How to make friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie. It is basically a book about how to brainwash and manipulate the people around you to think you are great. What is not good for him is that upon his insistence I also read a good portion of the book. The more I read the more I was disgusted. But I decided to study it so I would also know when someone was trying to use it's tactics on me. <br /><br />This "christian" and "honest" man tried to give me news that he knows full well puts my family in a great deal of danger of losing our home and my children to the state in a positive tone of voice so as to prevent me from realizing he was actually knowingly and willfully fucking me over. <br /><br />I, the Agnostic leaning Atheist who thinks it silly that Christians need a "God" to give them an excuse to be a decent person took him in when nobody else including his own family would not. These same Christians who insist you need god in order to have a moral center. He himself would rant endlessly about atheists. I started to argue with him just a bit but did not want my children to hear what I was going to say to him. He told me he was trying to be more courteous to me then some of my previous roommates had been. (He was then trying to deflect the blame onto the couple who moved out, one of which was still living there hoping to find a job so I didn't lose my house.) <br /><br />So I let him escape to his room where I imagine he was doing a great job of lying to himself that he had done the right thing by giving me 10 days notice that he was not going to be paying rent I was going to need at the end of the month. Then I put my kids to bed and went to the room and let him have it. I brought him back to reality by pointing out that 10 days notice is not a courtesy at all. And that after I had helped him out when nobody else would he was going to abandon us without any chance to replace him. I called him out for the way he had conducted himself trying to act like he was doing me a favor by moving out. And like I should be happy about the great news he was giving me that he was going to leave us on the very edge of homelessness. He stood there looking at me blankly and did not say a word. This was probably better as I think I would of smacked him. Then I slammed the door and went back to my own room. <br /><br />Over the course of the day I had felt the money having it's effects on me as well. I had to stop myself from being short with my children and everyone else. One of my friends wanted to tell me about the exciting new innovations in a video game we both played and it literally went in one ear and out the other. Nothing that gave me joy was interesting at all anymore. I had a bunch of links open about various things going on in the world that I wanted to read about for possible future radio shows. I found myself deleting some of them out of some sort of feeling that I just didn't care about what was going on anywhere else. My appetite completely failed. And now I am numb. I should of been in bed hours ago. <br /><br />This is the monetary system. Supposedly it is just a means of trade so that we can all trade our various objects for other objects to survive. <br /><br />To me it just seems evil.<br /><br />http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/census-finds-record-gap-between-rich-and-poor/19651337<br /><br />http://www.good.is/post/americans-are-horribly-misinformed-about-who-has-money/<br /><br />http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/young-adults-are-new-face-of-homelessness/19678303<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN3-2ON2F6c&feature=player_embedded<br /><br />http://gizmodo.com/5665523/robots-are-stealing-american-jobs-according-to-mit-economisthttp://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/no-i-mean-it-economy-is-failing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-3804715835262509060Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:37:00 +00002010-10-05T16:53:31.053-07:00V-RADIO Blog for 10/6/2010 show.Tonight on V-RADIO we are going to talk about two topics over two hours. In the first hour we will be having a commentary on the subject of the recent incident in Obion County, Tennessee. <br /><br />Apparently in the area outside of the main city limits you have to pay a $75 fee to get protection for your home from house fires. Quoting here from the news report on this subject: <br /><br />http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Firefighters-watch-as-home-burns-to-the-ground-104052668.html<br /><br />"Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won't respond, then watches it burn. That's exactly what happened to a local family tonight.<br /><br />A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.<br /><br />The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning.<br /><br />Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay.<br /><br />The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck.<br /><br />This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.<br /><br />Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.<br /><br />"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.<br /><br />Because of that, not much is left of Cranick's house.<br /><br />They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come.<br /><br />The Cranicks told 9-1-1 they would pay firefighters, whatever the cost, to stop the fire before it spread to their house.<br /><br />"When I called I told them that. My grandson had already called there and he thought that when I got here I could get something done, I couldn't," Paulette Cranick.<br /><br />It was only when a neighbor's field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't.<br /><br />We asked him why.<br /><br />He wouldn't talk to us and called police to have us escorted off the property. Police never came but firefighters quickly left the scene. Meanwhile, the Cranick home continued to burn.<br /><br />We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception.<br /><br />"Anybody that's not in the city of South Fulton, it's a service we offer, either they accept it or they don't," Mayor David Crocker said.<br /><br />Friends and neighbors said it's a cruel and dangerous city policy but the Cranicks don't blame the firefighters themselves. They blame the people in charge.<br /><br />"They're doing their job," Paulette Cranick said of the firefighters. "They're doing what they are told to do. It's not their fault."<br /><br />To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters."<br /><br />Colbert also had this gentlemen on for an interview afterward wherein he described how the whole thing went down. The interview was conducted with the man sitting in front of the rubble that was his home. <br /><br />I have to ask, this man offered to pay on the spot. Why the HELL didn't they let him do this? What difference would it of made if he paid right then and there? Two dogs, and the family cat also died in this fire. <br /><br />Now on to the second topic. <br /><br />Recently on my personal Facebook I linked a photo to my daughter getting on the bus for her first day of school. Being as how on my personal Facebook I have ZM members and my more day to day non-activist minded friends a conversation ensued because one of them, (Chibi) made a comment about public schools. I then stated I am considering home schooling when they get older. One of my other friends said that I should not do that, as home schooled children are socially deficient.<br /><br />My brother, who is very religious and home schools himself pointed out that there was little to no actual data to support the idea that kids who are home schooled have any sort of social problems. <br /><br />This got me to thinking. I didn't want the conversation derailed into talking about home schooling, however I did end up commenting on what sort of "social adjustments" children get. Basically I commented on what I learned socially when I was in school. <br /><br />First of all, I learned that if you wear Wrangler Jeans rather then Guess Jeans, you worth less then kids who come from families who are lucky enough to be able to afford the jeans that are generally thirty to forty dollars more expensive. (Despite the fact that the only real difference between these jeans is a logo). <br /><br />I learned similar things about every major fashion issue. I remember how important your fashion was to your worth socially. It impacted your entire image. I remember it went so far as to even include where you purchased the items in question. <br /><br />Nike Air Jordans that did not have the tag on them that proved that they were purchased at Foot Locker were not as prestigious as those purchased at K-Mart or another department store. Why? Well the ones purchased at Foot Locker generally costed more. So they wouldn't want you "cheating" to get some more street cred when your mother bought them at another store. <br /><br />Girls would not date you if your fashion was not in order. <br /><br />And in the city I grew up in, I remember very clearly kids getting shot over their Pump shoes, Triple Fat Goose jackets, or Leather Trench Coats. People wanted these symbols of worth so much they were willing to kill for them. <br /><br />I also learned a great deal about the social hierarchy system of "Popular vs unpopular". If you kissed the right ass, listened to the right music, dressed the right way then you were well on your way to becoming "popular". (Being physically attractive didn't hurt. But it didn't necessarily matter). But it was more then that. You had to willingly participate in the system of pecking order. Otherwise you could be targeted with endless harassment. Ridicule, and even violence. <br /><br />Those in "power" would punish you if you did not help them keep the order of things in line. There are kids you can earn brownie points by harassing or hurting. And if you do not participate you would find yourself in the same shoes as the poor kid who was the target. <br /><br />Don't get caught listening to music that is not approved by the social system. Don't get caught hanging out with the wrong people. Don't get caught dating someone whom is not on the list of those approved by the "clique". Sounds a bit fascist huh? Some of these kids would spy on you like the KGB to be sure you were towing the party line. Somehow I don't really think this is a system I would want my children to be "well adjusted" to. <br /><br />Then, perhaps the biggest laugh about the idea that public schooling is superior because of the social aspects of it, we can always talk about what happens to the unfortunate kids who happen to be smarter then everyone else. I remember very distinctly being attacked once by another student solely for "using big words". I had a pretty high vocabulary in school. And it was a reason to be taunted, or beaten up. If you prove to be smart a whole slew of slurs come your way. Words like Geek, Nerd, etc all fit into this. Isn't it a bit counter-productive to send your children into an institution where they will be forced to interact with kids who will actually punish them for succeeding academically? I remember not wanting to carry a lot of books home in case I would have to escape from whatever group of kids had decided to make me their victim for the day. My homework suffered as a result.<br /><br />Sports players who do well are revered. Kids who win the science fair will be lucky if they are not targeted for harassment. Or again, violence. <br /><br />And on the subject of violence and bullying in school, what solutions do they offer? <br /><br />Because my mother was poor and my father was well to do, at different times in my life I saw both sides of the spectrum. At the school I went to when I was with my mother we had shootings in or near the school fairly often. In the school I went to with my father there would be mild violence in comparison, however I was under mental stress constantly. (There was still violence, just not fatal.) My father was a cheap skate, and of course did not want to pay to dress me in such a way that was going to keep kids from bothering me. Ironically when given a choice at one point over which place I would rather go to school I picked the lower income area. <br /><br />So how effective are school officials at dealing with this stuff? They generally tell you to ignore bullies. Because after all, this is a practical solution when your locked in a room with these people for five to six hours a day. You can report your tormentors to the teachers with perhaps some temporary effect. Or even take it to the Principal. They scold them. Maybe give them detention. But in the end I learned that the only way I was ever going to get these kids to leave me alone was by beating them up myself. As publicly as possible. (Which of course you get in trouble for.) Thankfully my mother was very sympathetic to this sort of thing. So when I was suspended for defending myself, or even going after someone who would not leave me alone she would not punish me for it. <br /><br />Why was it so important to do it publicly? Well just like in our modern system today politics played into the memory of events. If two kids go at it, the more popular one will be the one "spun" to of won the fight if the popular crowd can get away with it. <br /><br />When I talk about this subject I tend to think of the two kids who took guns to school and went on a killing spree at Columbine. I remember very distinctly thinking to myself: <br /><br />"Well, I do not condone what they did. But I have a feeling I know why they did it."<br /><br />The mainstream media did a great job of focusing on schools needing more metal detectors and that kids need to play less violent games like "Mortal Kombat" and "Doom". <br /><br />(I would also point out that we in the schools in the ghetto neighborhood I lived in thought it was pretty funny that the news found it so important that some kids were shot in a nice white suburban neighborhood when shootings happened where we lived on a regular basis.)<br /><br />Every violent impulse I ever had in school had zero to do with the video games I played. It all related directly to the way I was treated by the other students. And frustration about the fact that the people in authority either were too apathetic or incompetent to handle the problem. But in a typical fashion our society rarely wants to look at the root causes of such problems. Particularly if it might mean they might have to -gasp- take responsibility for their own part in it. <br /><br />So to be "socially adjusted" I was forced to be violent myself. Or a victim.<br /><br />With the advent of the internet, you don't even get to escape the taunting when you go home. Kids have committed suicide recently because of cyberbullying. Another thing the school system seems to have no clue how to eliminate. Though I have read about more then one case where students get punished for attacking their teachers or other school officials online. Glad we have our priorities straight. <br /><br />So what are the real statistics on this issue as far as which environment is producing smarter or better educated kids? The home schooled kids? Or the ones forced to "socially adjust" in our public schools? <br /><br />From this article: http://school.familyeducation.com/home-schooling/educational-testing/41081.html<br /><br />"According to a report published by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) and funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, homeschool student achievement test scores were exceptionally high. The median scores for every subtest at every grade were well above those of public and Catholic/private-school students. On average, homeschool students in grades one to four performed one grade level above their age-level public/private school peers on achievement tests. Students who had been homeschooled their entire academic life had higher scholastic achievement test scores than students who had also attended other educational programs."<br /><br />One interesting facet of the study noted that academic achievement was equally high regardless of whether the student was enrolled in a full-service curriculum, or whether the parent had a state-issued teaching certificate.<br /><br />The study states, "Even with a conservative analysis of the data, the achievement levels of the homeschool students in the study were exceptional. Within each grade level and each skill area, the median scores for homeschool students fell between the 70th and 80th percentile of students nationwide and between the 60th and 70th percentile of Catholic/Private school students. For younger students, this is a one year lead. By the time homeschool students are in 8th grade, they are four years ahead of their public/private school counterparts."<br /><br />Also, "Homeschool students did quite well in 1998 on the ACT college entrance examination. They had an average ACT composite score of 22.8 which is .38 standard deviations above the national ACT average of 21.0 (ACT, 1998). This places the average homeschool student in the 65th percentile of all ACT test takers." <br /><br />Also, from this website:<br /><br />"In 1997, a study of 5,402 homeschool students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, "Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America." The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects. A significant finding when analyzing the data for 8th graders was the evidence that homeschoolers who are homeschooled two or more years score substantially higher than students who have been homeschooled one year or less. The new homeschoolers were scoring on the average in the 59th percentile compared to students homeschooled the last two or more years who scored between 86th and 92nd percentile. i<br /><br />This was confirmed in another study by Dr. Lawrence Rudner of 20,760 homeschooled students which found the homeschoolers who have homeschooled all their school aged years had the highest academic achievement. This was especially apparent in the higher grades. ii This is a good encouragement to families catch the long-range vision and homeschool through high school.<br /><br />Another important finding of Strengths of Their Own was that the race of the student does not make any difference. There was no significant difference between minority and white homeschooled students. For example, in grades K-12, both white and minority students scored, on the average, in the 87th percentile. In math, whites scored in the 82nd percentile while minorities scored in the 77th percentile. In the public schools, however, there is a sharp contrast. White public school eighth grade students, nationally scored the 58th percentile in math and the 57th percentile in reading. Black eighth grade students, on the other hand, scored on the average at the 24th percentile in math and the 28th percentile in reading. Hispanics scored at the 29th percentile in math and the 28th percentile in reading. iii<br /><br />These findings show that when parents, regardless of race, commit themselves to make the necessary sacrifices and tutor their children at home, almost all obstacles present in other school systems disappear.<br /><br />Another obstacle that seems to be overcome in homeschooling is the need to spend a great deal of money in order to have a good education. In Strengths of Their Own, Dr. Ray found the average cost per homeschool student is $546 while the average cost per public school student is $5,325. Yet the homeschool children in this study averaged in 85th percentile while the public school students averaged in the 50th percentile on nationally standardized achievement tests.iv<br /><br />Similarly, the 1998 study by Dr. Rudner of 20,760 students, found that eighth grade students whose parents spend $199 or less on their home education score, on the average, in the 80th percentile. Eighth grade students whose parents spend $400 to $599 on their home education also score on the average, in the 80th percentile! Once the parents spend over $600, the students do slightly better, scoring in the 83rd percentile.v<br /><br />The message is loud and clear. More money does not mean a better education. There is no positive correlation between money spent on education and student performance. Public school advocates could refocus their emphasis if they learned this lesson. Loving and caring parents are what matters. Money can never replace simple, hard work."<br /><br />So in this finding we see that home schooling helps get around the issues that happen when your a student in a low-income area. <br /><br />This and a great deal more data on the subject can be found here: <br /><br />http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp<br /><br />So what do you think is improving these test scores and performance of the students in question? <br /><br />How big of an impact do you think these kids not needing to worry about being taunted or attacked for being smart had to do with their performance? <br /><br />How much do you think it had to do with their learning environment being free of distractions like fashion, or the social pecking order? <br /><br />What about the lack of stress of any of this nonsense our kids are forced to deal with? <br /><br />Do you WANT your child to be well adjusted to such a situation? <br /><br />It's another one of those things that people just shrug their shoulders and say "Oh well, that's just the way it is..."<br /><br />I guess that is just not good enough for me as a parent.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/v-radio-blog-for-1052010-show.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-5133990887382205745Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:24:00 +00002010-10-01T15:48:21.879-07:00My financial crisis.So...<br /><br />As many of you have probably noticed the brown chip-in widget here on the blog, and on the main site you are have also seen the note to come here to check out the blog to find out what is going on. <br /><br />This month has been particularly hard in our home. I finally got my divorce final. This would be really the only highlight. And even that was depressing. <br /><br />As some of you know, I rent rooms to boarders here in my home to make ends meet. It allows me to be at home with my kids and this went from a boon to a requirement. I have no family nearby or anyone who can watch my son while my daughter is at school so getting a job myself was out of the question. Daycare is far too expensive for me at this stage as well. So I am dependent on rent from a total of four adults who live in three of the rooms here to keep things going. (This is also the situation that ended up causing me to ask for donations for V-RADIO in the first place.) <br /><br />Two of those adults both had unexpected financial crisis hit them, so they are falling behind. One of which started his own business in the Michigan economy. (Oops) and the other of which is currently paying a wonderful fee called a "Driver's responsibility fee" because he was caught driving without proper insurance. They basically fine you a couple hundred dollars a month, for two years. (Seems kind of self defeating huh?)<br /><br />The last two were a couple. One of which was a young lady willing to watch my kids. I waited for the divorce to be final and started to look for a job and got so far as the interview process only to be told that her father has convinced her to move back home. (A fairly common thing right now. Young adults move back in with their parents so they can lower their monthly costs and keep their lifestyle. The fact that she is pregnant doesn't help.) So that ended my job options. <br /><br />So the couple was going to move out. This of course being sudden very well could of crushed my financial situation that was already teetering over the edge. So the man of the couple agreed to stay in the home and pay rent until I could find another roommate or means to make money. <br /><br />He was employed at Wal-Mart until about an hour ago. Note, I said was. <br /><br />So today he sustained an injury on the job and they fired him on the spot so that they do not have to pay him disability. Apparently he crushed his finger. (I haven't seen him yet.) <br /><br />So, now it looks like he will also be moving out. As he has no job here and would not be able to get another one before rent was due anyway. <br /><br />Thankfully I was able to pay the rent, but all of the utilities are still unpaid this month, thanks to my two other roommates being unable to pay their own rent on time. And even when they do, it will not be enough to pay rent and utilities in the following month. <br /><br />So, here is my predicament. I cannot become employed outside the home. I am working on writing a few books for money from within the home. However it will take a long time for those projects to come to fruition. And I will lose my home and my children immediately following that long before that could ever save me. <br /><br />So here is what I propose to the listeners of V-RADIO. <br /><br />This month, I am going to work constantly to give you as many great shows as I feasibly can. I can't promise a lot of guests as that takes time to set up but I am going to do my damndest. I will be writing original blogs and having discussion shows with panelists on various issues and taking requests for issues to cover as well. <br /><br />I have put a brown chip-in widget labeled "V-RADIO SUPPLEMENTAL" with a goal of $400 (The amount of rent I normally would bring in from that couple who is moving out) for this month. I also still need the normal donations to keep V-RADIO up and running. <br /><br />Not to be dramatic, but this is basically my darkest hour. This is do or die. The monetary system here in Michigan is crumbling under technological unemployment as fast as the companies can export or automate the work. If I become homeless obviously V-RADIO will also cease to be. And my work for the movement will cease for the foreseeable future. I have no idea where I would go, or worse where my children would end up. <br /><br />I am going to do everything in my power on my end to try and get help in the meantime. But that is a process that may not work out. <br /><br />I absolutely appreciate everyone who has supported V-RADIO up until now. I know some of my detractors will have a field day with this. (And they can all go to hell) but this is it. My back is against the wall. Please help if you can. <br /><br />VTVhttp://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-financial-crisis.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-7709310154743340982Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:29:00 +00002010-09-30T07:29:38.308-07:00V-RADIO interview with Scott Noble. Filmmaker of "Psywar".V-RADIO set out to get an interview with Scott Noble, the filmmaker of the film “Psywar”. Psywar is an excellent film about the power of propaganda, public relations and advertising to influence and therefore control mankind.<br /><br />You can view this film at no cost by visiting V-RADIO.org and going to the “Must See TV” tab. On the last page you will find a link to this film. I strongly urge you to check it out. Our translations team is currently working on translating this film into other languages.<br /><br />Mr. Noble said he is not taking video or radio interviews at this time. However he did agree to take some time for a text based interview that I decided to share with you here.<br /><br />V-RADIO: Please introduce yourself to the readers.<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />Sure. I’m a writer, filmmaker and wage slave currently living on Vancouver Island in British Colombia. My first film, Psywar (“The Real battlefield is the mind”) was recently released online. It explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States.<br /><br />V-RADIO: Can you describe for the readers what was the precipice, the moment that got you "out of the box"? What got you out of the mainstream dream and instead peering behind the curtain?<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />I’m not sure I can pinpoint one moment in time, but I do remember being deeply disturbed by the revelation that my Aunt had been used as a human guinea pig in one of the CIA’s Cold War mind control experiments – specifically, experiments conducted at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal. <br /><br />The Allen Memorial was then regarded as the preeminent psychiatric institution in Canada, so my grandparents decided to send my aunt there (a teenager at the time) to help her deal with certain emotional problems. She was only 16. From what I gather, her problems amounted to typical adolescent behavior (typical in our society, at least) – depression, delinquency, acting out and so forth. <br /><br />Unbeknownst to my grandparents, the Center’s director, Dr. Ewan Cameron, was being paid by the CIA to conduct “mind control” experiments. He would later become president of the World Psychiatric Association. Techniques included massive doses of electric shock, massive doses of barbiturates, prolonged sensory deprivation, and other tortures. Indeed, one of the CIA’s torture manuals, “KUBARK’, refers explicitly to Cameron’s experiments along with earlier studies in “fear based conditioning” by behaviorists like Hobart Mowrer. <br /><br />Kubark describes a process of “regression” where “subjects” can be reduced to an “infantile state”. I explore these issues in my next documentary, “Human Resources”, which was recently completed and will be online in a month or two. <br /><br />Perhaps owing to her young age at the time, my Aunt was never able to recover from the trauma of her experience at the Allen Memorial. She later took her own life. <br /><br />V-RADIO: In regards to your Aunt, how did you find out about what happened to her?<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />It was bitterly ironic in that when she emerged from the Allen Memorial she was a basketcase and diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. This was interpreted, at the time, by doctors, friends and loved ones as a worsening of her symptoms. She cried out that she had been "locked in the basement" of the center for months at a time and viciously abused by other methods -- an absurd idea, it seemed. It was only many years later when the story broke that we realized she was referring to "sensory deprivation" experiments.<br /><br />She refused to participate in the lawsuit against the Canadian government and the CIA due to fears that it was a sinister plot (a few victims such as Linda McDonald received a pittance -- about a hundred grand), revealing that she had indeed become a "paranoid schizophrenic", at least according to the typical diagnostic measures. The question is whether same would have happened if she hadn't suffered through the "therapy" of the CIA. I guess if you've been tortured for months on end, sinister plots where the government is out to get you don't seem so irrational.<br /><br />In any case, I never met her in person. When we visited her house, we were never allowed inside. I was a kid at the time. We all regarded her as a sort of "crazy Aunt in the attic". I have dedicated by second film, "Human Resources", to my Aunt, whose name was Nancy Noble.<br /><br />V-RADIO: What motivated you to make Psywar?<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />It was an unusual process in that I planned for a documentary series from the outset: five or six films. So I didn’t have a clear idea what subjects I would tackle first. I conducted about 30 interviews with various intellectuals, activists, former spooks, whistleblowers etc., and decided to start with propaganda. <br /><br />Obviously, no one film can properly address so vast a subject, so I decided to design Psywar both as an introduction to the current state of psychological warfare and as a sort of history lesson about the origins and development of PR and propaganda in the United States. Future entries will explore the Cold War period and its bastard child, The War on Terror. <br /><br />The History Channel is replete with documentaries about the propaganda techniques employed by the Third Reich and the Soviet Union against its citizens, but when it comes to propaganda techniques employed by the American government against theirs – information we could actually use – we are left with very little to go on; at least in the “mainstream media”. <br /><br />Part of this owes to the historical relationship between propaganda and journalism in the United States. <br /><br />The “mainstream media” has worked hand in glove with both the state and powerful corporations since the beginnings of the American propaganda industry. <br /><br />During WWI, figures like Edward Bernays, Walter Lippmann, Ivy Lee – the “founding fathers” of modern journalism and PR – all of them cut their teeth foisting pro-war propaganda on the American people. They worked for the Creel Committee and nascent intelligence agencies such as “The Inquiry”, which had three main goals: to demonize the enemy (in this case the Germans), to demonize dissidents in the homeland, and to convince the American public that it was their destiny to “make the world safe for democracy”. We all know how well that turned out. <br /><br />A disturbingly similar pattern emerges after WWII. Fresh from the OWI (Office of War Information) you have the publishers of Time, Look and Fortune; the editors of Holiday, Coronet, Parade, and the Saturday Review; the heads of Viking Press, Harper & Brothers, Straus and Young; the board chairman of CBS; the editor of Reader’s Digest and so on. For more on this, I highly recommend Christopher Simpson’s book “The Science of Coercion”. <br /><br />The virtual uniformity of “intellectual” and “mainstream” opinion during the Cold War should come as no surprise. It wasn’t just a question of shared class interests – though that was probably the most important factor – there was also this deeply incestuous relationship between the American state (and its burgeoning intelligence agencies), the “mainstream media”, elite–funded “think tanks”, and the corporations and banks which would seem to control all of the above.<br /><br />By the time the “war on terror” rolled around you had a tiny handful of giant media conglomerates in near complete command of the flow of information. The Internet is throwing a considerable amount of sand in the gears. God willing, the machine will grind to a halt in the near future.<br />I think a lot of activists tend to assume that most of this stuff is common knowledge. In broad strokes perhaps it is. Yet a close friend with whom I discuss these sorts of issues on a fairly frequent basis was unaware of many of the incidents I cover in Psywar. For example: that the Jessica Lynch story and the toppling of the Saddam Statue were staged by “TPT”’s or “Tactical Psyop Teams”, that CNN used military “Psywarriors” during its coverage of the assault on Serbia, that PR hacks now outnumber journalists, that “journalists” themselves spend most of their time regurgitating PR.<br /><br />There’s an ironic coincidence relating to the film itself. Literally two weeks after I first uploaded it to the Internet and sent it around to various journalists, the DOD announced that it was dropping the term “Psyops” from its lexicon. From hence forth, they declared, psychological operations would be known as "Military Information Support Operations," or MISO. <br /><br />Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but of course that’s the point. The “Department of Defense” used to be called the Department of War. <br /><br />V-RADIO: Are you familiar with the BBC documentary "The Century of Self"? Did it influence your making of Psywar?<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />It did, but not in the manner you might expect. Curtis is an extremely talented filmmaker with an immense repository of archival footage at his disposal (some of which I utilized in Psywar), and he puts out a great product. But I also find that he tends to exaggerate the importance of particular individuals, groups and fanciful ideas in lieu of basic class analysis; he also appears to self-censor, often at critical junctures. I don’t recall seeing the slightest hint of skepticism about the official story of 911 in “The Power of Nightmares”. <br /><br />There was a great review of The Century of the Self” published by Media Lens. In it, the author quotes a passage from the film:<br /><br />"Politicians and planners came to believe that Freud was right to suggest that hidden deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had lead to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again, they set out to find ways to control the hidden enemy within the human mind." (The Century of the Self - The Engineering of Consent, BBC2, March 24, 2002)<br /><br />The critic goes on to state:<br /><br />“As you'll know, if you've read Elizabeth Fones-Wolf's study of the period, Alex Carey's work, and countless books by Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, and many others, this could not be further from the truth. Post-1945, as now, the real fear of politicians and planners was the existence of dangerous +rational+ desires and fears - popular desires for equity, justice and functioning democracy; popular fears that unbridled capitalism and militarism would once again lead to horrors on the scale of the two world wars. Freud's theories were incidental - useful in refining traditional methods of popular control perhaps, but a sideshow.”<br /><br />In Curtis’ film, Bernays is presented more as a cause than effect. In reality he was joined by all sorts of other like-minded mind managers from the time period: scientists like John B. Watson, the founder of behaviorism, for example, and Ivy Lee, the unsung hero of embedded journalism, crisis management and the press release. Public relations evolved as a means of rescuing corporations from the wrath of public opinion, most notably in response to events like the Ludlow massacre. <br /><br />The revolution in American advertising was brought about not by a single visionary but by a crisis in capitalism, namely overproduction, which mandated new and innovative ways of marketing products. There were alternatives.<br />Raising wages and reducing working hours, for example, but corporations were and are mandated by law to maximize profits on behalf of their shareholders.<br /><br />The consumer society is a natural outgrowth of capitalism, not Freud. Endless growth means endless mountains of junk. To sell it, you have convince people that buying objects leads to happiness. <br /><br />V-RADIO: What inspired you to include such a lengthy section on the American Constitution?<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />People like Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays are great exemplars of what Peter Bachrach called “The theory of democratic elitism”, but they didn’t create this philosophy. They merely updated it to correspond with new developments in technology and communication. You can go back Mosca or Schumpeter or a whole slew of other anti-democratic philosophers from Machiavelli to Plato, but crucially, for our discussion, the Founding Fathers of the United States itself.<br /><br />There is very little difference between Lippmann’s suggestion that “the people” are a “bewildered herd” which “must be put in place”, and John Jay’s remark that the “people who own the country ought to govern it”, or Alexander Hamilton’s quip that the people are a “great beast” needing to be tamed, or Madison’s insistence that a primary function of government is to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority”. <br /><br />The overriding theme is that real democracy might produce “leveling tendencies”, in other words, an egalitarian society in which “regular people” might actually be able to participate in the running of their government (or lack thereof, depending how anarchistic your tendencies). <br /><br />What has emerged as the primary form of governance around the globe is what social scientists describe as polyarchy. There’s a fancy definition for it, but the basic gist is that we get to vote every few years to elect some rich guy, write letters to our “representatives”, and if we’re really uppity – attend a demonstration – but by no means should we be permitted to actually make decisions collectively on matters of any import. Important decisions are the purview of the enlightened ones – people like Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan. Or, if you like, the Founding Fathers and their “responsible set of men” – the wealthy. <br /><br />I have received some criticism that the section on the Constitution and the American power structure is a “departure” from the other content. In my own view, it is impossible to understand modern propaganda without understanding the theory of democratic elitism. Indeed, the idea that modern governments (whether labeled Republic or parliamentary democracy) are or were in any way “democratic” is perhaps the greatest psyop of them all. <br /><br />These structures are based on the premise that the “powers” can be “balanced by each other”, a concept which should, at this point, be recognized as a monumental failure. The majority recognized it as a con at the time of the constitutional convention, and indeed the anti-Federalists predicted quite accurately what would occur as a result. <br /><br />There is a good deal of myth-making associated with colonial America. We are invited to imagine the halcyon days in which some sort of “free market” existed alongside “limited government”. Granted, it is acknowledged, there were minor problems in the form of slavery, the oppression of women and the genocide of Native Americans, but by and large you had something approaching a legitimate meritocracy: an honest to goodness bootstrap society. <br /><br />The reality was quite different. As Norman Livergood explains, “In Colonial America, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting much poorer. In 1687 in Boston, the top 1% owned about 25% of the wealth. By 1770, the top 1% owned 44%. In those same years, the poor--those who owned no property--represented 14% in 1687 and 29% in 1770.”<br /><br />So you had a system of rapidly increasing inequality and class conflict, culminating in the Shay’s Rebellion and other debtor riots, which necessitated a strong Federal Government to crush the nascent spirit of democracy flowering amongst the American people. <br /><br />In some ways, it should not be surprising that many Americans regard the word “democracy” with contempt. <br /><br />The absurdist PR spectacles known as “elections”, in which issues like gay marriage can actually sway the balance of power, deserve nothing but disdain. But we would do well to remember that the Soviet Union also called itself a democracy. <br /><br />There are alternatives, touched upon in the film that do not necessitate either tyranny of the minority or tyranny of the majority, but which rely on concepts like decentralization, anti-hierarchy, consensus decision-making and other modes of social organization. For those who would simultaneously worship the founding fathers and turn property into an idol, I recommend the words of Benjamin Franklin:<br /><br />“Under presence of governing, [Europeans] have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep”. Whereas, amongst Native Americans:<br /><br />“All property, indeed, except the savage’s temporary cabin, his bow, his matchcoat and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the creature of public Convention. Hence, the public has the rights of regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the quantity and uses of it. All the property that is necessary to a man is his natural Right, which none may justly deprive him of, but all Property superfluous to such Purposes is the property of the Public who, by their Laws have created it and who may, by other Laws dispose of it.” <br /><br />[see my article on Dissident Voice, Ayn Rand in Uganda, for more on right wing libertarianism]<br />http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/ayn-rand-in-uganda-2/<br /><br />V-RADIO: What kind of reactions have you had with regard to the film? Any memorable feedback good or bad?<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />Overall the response has been very positive. Numerous professors from numerous countries have requested hard copies for use in University courses ranging from communications to sociology to Native American studies. The film is currently being translated into a number of languages, including Spanish, French and Arabic. <br /><br />In terms of viewership, Psywar achieved viral status its first week, receiving 83,000 views in six days. Unfortunately its momentum was scotched when Exposure Room (the hosting site) removed it for reasons that were not clearly explained (I’m guessing bandwidth cost was the culprit). I have since re-uploaded the film to other websites. <br /><br />The only significant negative feedback I’ve received so far has to do with the medium itself. It is argued that Psywar – a film about propaganda – is itself propagandistic. It contains moving music, slick editing and provocative imagery. <br /><br />I suppose it depends how we define propaganda. If we use the simplest definition: “information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause”, then Psywar is indeed propagandistic. In Brave New World revisited, Aldous Huxley wrote that:<br /><br />“Mass communication, in a word, is neither good nor bad; it is simply a force and, like any other force, it can be used either well or ill. Used in one way, the press, the radio and the cinema are indispensable to the survival of democracy. Used in another way, they are among the most powerful weapons in the dictator's armory.”<br /><br />To me, the word propaganda contains a sinister connotation: the intent to deceive. Since I didn’t set out to deceive anyone with my film, I don’t consider it an example of propaganda. Agitprop might be a better description, referring here to the politicized artwork that flourished in the first half of the twentieth Century. <br /><br />We would do well to consider the idea that the most insidious forms of propaganda do not come in the form of a plainly stated thesis or obvious political viewpoint, but in the art of pseudo-objectivity. I am far less offended by the ridiculous bombast of Fox News than many a BBC or PBS documentary: films which pretend to examine issues in an objective, detached, rational manner but employ subtle propaganda techniques to mislead viewers. Censorship by omission is the most widely used device. <br /><br />The use of audio/visual techniques in Psywar that might be interpreted as “manipulative” are, to me, simply an expression of my own creativity -- no more propagandistic than a clever turn of phrase in an essay, and no less necessary. Especially to today’s audience. It is difficult to maintain a viewer’s interest in what Bo Filter describes as our “post-literate society”, and I make no apologies for attempting to move and entertain in addition to educate. I’m no more interested in making a boring documentary than watching one. <br /><br />V-RADIO: Now that Psywar has been out for a while is there anything you wish you had put in the film that you missed, or anything you put into it you wish you had not?<br /><br />Mr. Noble:<br />I had originally intended to cover the entire cold war period in the film, but I soon realized that would be impossible. Instead, I will be examining the cold war in my third film, “Counter-Intelligence”, which I began work on last week. <br /><br />Of particular interest to me in this respect is the rise of “black propaganda”. The term is used in a variety of contexts, often benign, but a lesser known definition comes from a declassified document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and published in Chris Simpson’s seminal work on the subject, “The Science of Coercion”. Here, black propaganda includes “clandestine warfare, subversion, sabotage, and miscellaneous operations such as assassination”. <br /><br />Later Counter-insurgency manuals explicitly refer to “false flag operations” such as occurred under Operations Ajax and Gladio. False flags are acts of terrorism and or other forms of violence carried out by hidden actors which are then blamed on a designated enemy. Planted evidence and patsies are usually involved. Many scholars argue quite plausibly that the “war on terror” amounts to Gladio redux, with Muslims replacing communists. <br /><br />Black propaganda remains the biggest taboo in journalism. <br /><br />There was an interesting sort of unspoken debate that occurred between Walter Lippmann and Harold Laswell in the aftermath of WWI. Lippmann advocated the “manufacture of consent”, which he regarded as a more humane and effective means of managing the public consciousness than brute force. Laswell, on the other hand, recommended a blending of the old and new: media control would be paramount, but selected acts of covert violence would also be necessary. It is Laswell’s vision that ultimately won the day. <br /><br />One other regret about Psywar: I have a great clip of Christopher Simpson discussing the etymology of the word “communication”. I was intending to include it in the film but simply forgot about it until it was too late.<br /><br />The Latin roots of the word suggest the “sharing of duties” or “sharing of burdens”. So we have terms like commune, or communion, or community and so forth: words that describe who we are and how we survive as a species. Somewhere along the line, the meaning of “communication” changed. It was no longer about the sharing of ideas but about their transmission by a select group of elites to the mass of the population. In other words, Propaganda. So the relationship was altered from one of equality to one of hierarchy. <br /><br />The people on the receiving end are rendered fundamentally passive in this relationship. They are not participants but spectators. The same analogy can be drawn to the entire edifice of modern government. We are not allowed to participate in any meaningful way. But we can watch television to our heart’s content. <br /><br />When I made Psywar, and when I imagine people watching it, the hope is that I am not merely transmitting a message, but that viewers will become participants by engaging with the ideas, debating them with others, and hopefully taking some sort of action in response – even if it’s just sending the link around. <br /><br />There’s a certain beauty to the blog and the internet forum. It doesn’t matter if you’re a VIP or a janitor; you have equal space to express your opinions. It’s almost like the old town meetings in colonial America, prior to the constitutional convention, where slave owners and land speculators lamented the fact that the “lowliest craftsmen” were allowed to participate in debate and policy formulation. If we are ever to end the madness, we will have to recapture that spirit of real, participatory democracy and put it into practice en masse. <br /><br />To view Psywar, and all of Mr. Noble’s upcoming film projects please visit:<br />http://metanoia-films.org/psywar.phphttp://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/v-radio-interview-with-scott-noble.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-6987292628822661409Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:08:00 +00002010-08-12T16:38:53.116-07:00Articles for V-RADIO 8/12/2010 show.On this episode of V-RADIO we will be talking about how money and materialism do not make you happy. I found a couple of articles that are relevant to this. <br /><br />Why Money Makes You Unhappy<br />By Jonah Lehrer <br /> <br />Money is surprisingly bad at making us happy. Once we escape the trap of poverty, levels of wealth have an extremely modest impact on levels of happiness, especially in developed countries. Even worse, it appears that the richest nation in history – 21st century America – is slowly getting less pleased with life. (Or as the economists behind this recent analysis concluded: “In the United States, the [psychological] well-being of successive birth-cohorts has gradually fallen through time.”)<br /><br />Needless to say, this data contradicts one of the central assumptions of modern society, which is that more money equals more pleasure. That’s why we work hard, fret about the stock market and save up for that expensive dinner/watch/phone/car/condo. We’ve been led to believe that dollars are delight in a fungible form.<br /><br />But the statistical disconnect between money and happiness raises a fascinating question: Why doesn’t money make us happy? One intriguing answer comes from a new study by psychologists at the University of Liege, published in Psychological Science. The scientists explore the “experience-stretching hypothesis,” an idea first proposed by Daniel Gilbert. He explains “experience-stretching” with the following anecdote:<br /><br /> I’ve played the guitar for years, and I get very little pleasure from executing an endless repetition of three-chord blues. But when I first learned to play as a teenager, I would sit upstairs in my bedroom happily strumming those three chords until my parents banged on the ceiling…Doesn’t it seem reasonable to invoke the experience-stretching hypothesis and say that an experience that once brought me pleasure no longer does? A man who is given a drink of water after being lost in the Mojave Desert may at that moment rate his happiness as eight. A year later, the same drink might induce him to feel no better than a two.<br /><br />What does experience-stretching have to do with money and happiness? The Liege psychologists propose that, because money allows us to enjoy the best things in life – we can stay at expensive hotels and eat exquisite sushi and buy the nicest gadgets – we actually decrease our ability to enjoy the mundane joys of everyday life. (Their list of such pleasures includes ”sunny days, cold beers, and chocolate bars”.) And since most of our joys are mundane – we can’t sleep at the Ritz every night – our ability to splurge actually backfires. We try to treat ourselves, but we end up spoiling ourselves.<br /><br />The study itself is straightforward. The psychologists gathered 351 adult employees of the University of Liège, from custodial staff to senior administrators, for an online survey. (I should note that it remains unclear whether happiness and other aspects of well-being can be meaningfully measured with a multiple choice test. So caveats apply.) The scientists primed the subjects by showing them a stack of Euro bills before asking them a bunch of questions which attempted to capture their “savoring ability.” Here’s how the savoring test worked:<br /><br /> Participants are asked to imagine finishing an important task (contentment), spending a romantic weekend away (joy), or discovering an amazing waterfall while hiking (awe). Each scenario is followed by eight possible reactions, including the four savoring strategies referred to in the introduction (i.e., displaying positive emotions, staying present, anticipating or reminiscing about the event, and telling other people about the experience). Participants are required to select the response or responses that best characterize what their typical behavior in each situation would be, and receive 1 point for each savoring strategy selected.<br /><br />Interestingly, the scientists found that people in the wealth condition – they’d been primed with all those Euros – had significantly lower savoring scores. This suggests that simply looking at money makes us less interested in relishing the minor pleasures of life. Furthermore, subjects who made more money in real life – the scientists asked all subjects for their monthly income – scored significantly lower on the savoring test. A subsequent experiment duplicated this effect among Canadian students, who spent less time savoring a chocolate bar after being shown a picture of Canadian dollars. The psychologists end on a bleak note:<br /><br /> Taken together, our findings provide evidence for the provocative notion that having access to the best things in life may actually undermine one’s ability to reap enjoyment from life’s small pleasures. Our research demonstrates that a simple reminder of wealth produces the same deleterious effects as actual wealth on an individual’s ability to savor, suggesting that perceived access to pleasurable experiences may be sufficient to impair everyday savoring. In other words, one need not actually visit the pyramids of Egypt or spend a week at the legendary Banff spas in Canada for one’s savoring ability to be impaired—simply knowing that these peak experiences are readily available may increase one’s tendency to take the small pleasures of daily life for granted.<br /><br />This makes me think of the Amish. From a certain perspective, the Amish live without a lot of the stuff most of us consider essential. They don’t use cars, reject the Internet, avoid the mall, and prefer a quiet permanence to hefty bank accounts. The end result, however, is a happiness boom. When asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, the Amish are as satisfied with their lives as members of the Forbes 400. There are, of course, many ways to explain the contentment of the Amish. (The community has strong ties, plenty of religious faith and stable families, all of which reliably correlate with high levels of well-being.) But I can’t help wonder if part of their happiness is related to experience-stretching. They don’t fret about getting the latest iPhone, or eating at the posh new restaurant, or buying the au courant handbag. The end result, perhaps, is that the Amish are better able to enjoy what really matters, which is all the stuff money can’t buy"<br /><br />The next pair or articles I will be quoting from, but they are in reference to a woman named Tammy Strobel, who shed her previous consumer lifestyle in favor of limiting the personal items she owned to no more then 100. <br /><br />"At one point in her life -- when she owned a two-bedroom condo, two cars, and enough wedding china to serve two dozen people gazpacho at the same time -- Tammy Strobel, 31, asked herself if all that "stuff" actually made her and her husband, Logan, happy.<br /><br />Apparently she's not the only woman to feel less than euphoric an hour after making an impulse buy: A story about her new un-material-girl lifestyle is currently the most popular piece on the New York Times website.<br /><br />After the jump she tells Lemondrop what exactly she gave away, what she misses most, and why she and her husband are happier than ever living on ... half their former income.<br /><br />Then, you tell us, which life would you choose -- Tammy's before or Tammy's after?<br /><br /> Tammy Before: She worked as a project manager for an investment management firm in Davis, Calif. and netted about $40,000 a year. She and Logan also had $30,000 in debt.<br /><br /> After reading up on the simplicity movement (she blogs about it at rowdykittens.com), they started donating to charity like fiends.<br /><br /> Out went sweaters, shoes, books, pots, pans. They even put the TV in the closet as a trial run, then decided they could part with it. Then they sold their cars, too.<br /><br /> Next, Tammy found the 100 Things Challenge, a grassroots website/movement that encourages consumers to pare down to just 100 items. And, from underwear to albums, she did.<br /><br /> Tammy After: Three years later, Tammy and Logan live in a 400-square-foot apartment in Portland, Ore. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. They're still car-free -- in fact they self-published an e-book, "Simply Car-Free", about life after oil dependency.<br /><br /> She works as a freelance web designer and writer, making about $24,000 a year, which, she says, covers their bills. Logan is getting his doctorate in physiology. The couple is now debt-free.<br /><br /> Because she doesn't work as much, Tammy has more time to travel, spend outdoors, be in nature, and volunteer, which she spends four hours a month doing at Living Yoga."<br /><br />This article goes on to ask her what motivated her to do this, and how her life is now:<br /><br />"Lemondrop: When and why did the "100 Things Challenge" first strike a chord with you?<br />Tammy Strobel: I've been interested in the voluntary simplicity movement for the last four years. Dave Bruno's 100 Things Challenge came along about two years later and I think it was the simplicity of the challenge that made it so engaging and helped me reevaluate what I need in my life. The point of the challenge is to reduce the number of personal items you own to under 100 items. Methods of counting range from person to person. In my interpretation of Dave's 100 Thing Challenge, the exercise is less about counting up stuff than it is about asking ourselves larger questions like:<br /><br />-- Where was my stuff made?<br />-- How was my stuff processed and where does it all go when I'm done with it?<br />-- Why do I shop so much?<br />-- Do material things really make me happy?<br />-- If I have less stuff to worry about, will I have more time to give back to my community?<br /><br />Being aware of how stuff affects our physical and emotional health is empowering. More importantly, making small changes in our own lives leads to a greater awareness of the connection between environmental, economic, and social justice issues."<br /><br />In the next question she talks about some of the things that are the reason I often suggest to people to watch the documentary "The Century of Self":<br /><br />Lemondrop:Before this, your life seemed to look a lot like a lot of ours. You were newlyweds, with an apartment, two cars, and a full-time job. What did you mean when you said you felt trapped on the "work-spend treadmill"?<br /><br />"I was going to work to earn money to buy stuff I didn't need. And that's not a healthy pattern. I didn't feel like I had control over my time or finances. By downsizing, I've gained control over both."<br /><br />The conversation continues: <br /><br />Lemondrop: Can you give us a partial list of what you parted with? What was the hardest material thing to leave behind?<br /><br />"Some of the items we parted with included a lot of books, furniture, clothing, our television, and cars. The cars were the hardest to leave behind. We slowly shed cars over a period of three years. We started out with one car and one truck that we drove daily, and now we don't own a car. After we adjusted to car-free living, we asked ourselves, "Why did it take so long to sell our cars?"<br /><br />When I think about how much money we spent on them, I don't miss them at all. Especially when you consider the financial strain of car ownership.<br /><br />Even if you've paid off your car, do you really know the true cost? According to the book "How to Live Well Without Owning a Car":<br /><br />-- Americans spend one-fifth of their income on cars.<br />-- An American Automobile Association study pointed out that the average American spends $8,410 per year to own a vehicle. That's $700 per month. (The figure includes car payments, insurance, gas, oil, car washes, registration fees, taxes, parking, tools and repairs.)"<br /><br />And further:<br /><br />Lemondrop: I think a lot of women fantasize about jettisoning their entire lives to have the time to do the things you seem to now: volunteer for something they love, set their own hours, take a vacation without worrying about vacation days. How do you feel different than you did before?<br /><br />"I have so much more motivation now than I did before! Learning how to love life and not stuff was the game changer. Clutter gets in the way of living a full and happy life. Valuable time that could be spent with family, friends or volunteering gets sucked up with too much time in the house cleaning or in the mall shopping, or results in financial strain from overspending.<br /><br />I'm not perfect and still have consumer tendencies. However, I've taken note of my trigger points. If I'm feeling lonely, I don't go shopping anymore. I head outside for a bike ride, read a book or volunteer for a nonprofit."<br /><br />It's clear that she enjoyed her life much more after getting off the endless ride of working to buy more stuff. <br /><br />When asked if she is happier:<br /><br />"Are you happier?<br />Yes, we are both happier. Without the burden of stuff or debt weighting us down we have less anxiety and more time to spend with friends, family, and give back to our community. I know a lot of folks probably think we're crazy. But really what's crazier? Living with less or living solely to pay for a large house to store your stuff in?"<br /><br />In the second article that also talks about Tammy's lifestyle changes, they quote various scientific studies on the effects of consumerism and happiness: <br /><br />"So just where does happiness reside for consumers? Scholars and researchers haven’t determined whether Armani will put a bigger smile on your face than Dolce & Gabbana. But they have found that our types of purchases, their size and frequency, and even the timing of the spending all affect long-term happiness.<br /><br />One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.<br /><br />“ ‘It’s better to go on a vacation than buy a new couch’ is basically the idea,” says Professor Dunn, summing up research by two fellow psychologists, Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich. Her own take on the subject is in a paper she wrote with colleagues at Harvard and the University of Virginia: “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right.” (The Journal of Consumer Psychology plans to publish it in a coming issue.)<br /><br />Thomas DeLeire, an associate professor of public affairs, population, health and economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, recently published research examining nine major categories of consumption. He discovered that the only category to be positively related to happiness was leisure: vacations, entertainment, sports and equipment like golf clubs and fishing poles."<br /><br />"“We buy a new house, we get accustomed to it,” says Professor Lyubomirsky, who studies what psychologists call “hedonic adaptation,” a phenomenon in which people quickly become used to changes, great or terrible, in order to maintain a stable level of happiness.<br /><br />Over time, that means the buzz from a new purchase is pushed toward the emotional norm.<br /><br />“We stop getting pleasure from it,” she says.<br /><br />And then, of course, we buy new things."<br /><br />It is critical to understand the value of this information. It proves a few things that are critical about the success of the Venus Project. <br /><br />1. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that all capitalists are trying to chase down loses it's luster. People who have everything are not happy just for having everything. Whereas people with a low material lifestyle, even those who do not have technology like the Amish have very happy lives. <br /><br />2. Material possessions do not enhance quality of life. And in fact, having too much of them can even hinder your ability to enjoy life. Mankind is lost in a never ending loop of work, buy, and work some more so you can buy some more. Then work some more to buy an even bigger house to put the stuff in that you bought. We end up in huge debt, in the end our possessions do not belong to us. We belong to them. <br /><br />3. Travel, and actual experiences are far more rewarding in the long run then material items. Therefore the lifestyle we suggest in the Venus Project will be far more fulfilling then any amount of running the rat race to get the next new car, new house, new I-Gadget, etc. <br /><br />More and more compelling evidence that our proposed social direction is the right choice surfaces all the time.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/articles-for-v-radio-8122010-show.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-7837131660524908940Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:46:00 +00002010-06-07T12:36:04.192-07:00About the Boston Tea Party, and how it can help the Zeitgeist Movement.(UPDATED)The recent results at the Boston Tea Party national convention were disappointing. But some of this was due to confusion, and some of it was due to some questionable actions by the chair of the party at the time. However, that sort of resistance to change is to be expected. <br /><br />We ran three candidates who volunteered to give their names and be part of an election to the national committee of this small political party. Mathew Wagner, the chapter administrator for the Ohio chapter of the Zeitgeist Movement, Rion Ametu who some of you might know as Adrean on the voice chat servers for the Zeitgeist Movement, and myself. <br /><br />So I guess some of you despite my previous radio shows and blog posts on this subject are still wondering exactly what this is all about, so I am going to post all the information here. <br /><br />The Boston Tea Party is a small political party that is basically a spin off of the Libertarian Party. It was formed in protest of some of the things going on in the Libertarian Party of the United States. The party is based entirely on the internet, but they do run Presidential candidates. They also endorse active politicians who follow their platform. The platform is incredibly small. This is it: <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose.</span><br /><br />Yes, that's it. That's all there is to it. I became involved in the Boston Tea Party after my work with Senator Mike Gravel's bid for the Libertarian nomination. I was still a mainstream Libertarian at the time. They asked me to run for the national committee of the party so I did, and I won. <br /><br />What does a national committee do? <br /><br />The national committee of a political party votes on resolutions, and makes basic decisions for the party. For example if the party is considering endorsing a certain candidate, or taking a certain stance on one political view or another the committee votes to determine if the party will make a statement about this. <br /><br />Say a certain politician is running for office and we want to support that politician. The membership can suggest that we endorse them and the committee would then vote on that. <br /><br />Or say the party membership might like to make a statement about a certain issue like the war in Iraq. (Currently the party calls for immediate withdrawal, as an example.) Then it would fall to the committee to vote on this. <br /><br />But wait, aren't we "rejecting the political system"? <br /><br />I went to Jacque and Roxanne about my idea for a caucus I was going to form with interests in the Boston Tea Party and the Green Party of the United States. After I showed them the platform for the caucus they approved it. <br /><br />What is a caucus? <br /><br />A caucus is basically a group within a political party that supports a certain set of values and may have a certain agenda for that party. An example of a caucus is the "Republican Liberty Caucus" which is basically the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party. They support bringing Libertarian ideals into the Republican Party's views. <br /><br />So this is the platform of the Resource Based Economy Caucus of the Boston Tea Party. <br /><br />This caucus still is in line with the platform of the Boston Tea Party, but suggests a different solution to getting us to the goals presented. The Boston Tea Party platform states:<br /><br />"The Boston Tea Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope and power of government at any level, for any purpose."<br /><br />This caucus would actually propose suggestions about how to remove the need for government entirely through the use of technology as a final goal.<br /><br />The Resource-Based economy caucus:<br /><br />The Resource-Based economy caucus is a caucus that seeks to bring about awareness of the advantages of implementing a Resource-Based economy. And to work towards that implementation. The definition of a Resource-Based economy as defined by Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project is as follows:<br /><br />“A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.<br /><br />Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care; update our educational system; and develop a limitless supply of renewable, non-contaminating energy. By supplying an efficiently designed economy, everyone can enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities of a high technological society.<br /><br />We must emphasize that this approach to global governance has nothing whatever in common with the present aims of an elite to form a world government with themselves and large corporations at the helm, and the vast majority of the world's population subservient to them. Our vision of globalization empowers each and every person on the planet to be the best they can be, not to live in abject subjugation to a corporate governing body.<br /><br />Our proposals would not only add to the well being of people, but they would also provide the necessary information that would enable them to participate in any area of their competence. The measure of success would be based on the fulfillment of one's individual pursuits rather than the acquisition of wealth, property and power.<br /><br />At present, we have enough material resources to provide a very high standard of living for all of Earth's inhabitants. Only when population exceeds the carrying capacity of the land do many problems such as greed, crime and violence emerge. By overcoming scarcity, most of the crimes and even the prisons of today's society would no longer be necessary.<br /><br />A resource-based economy would make it possible to use technology to overcome scarce resources by applying renewable sources of energy, computerizing and automating manufacturing and inventory, designing safe energy-efficient cities and advanced transportation systems, providing universal health care and more relevant education, and most of all by generating a new incentive system based on human and environmental concern.<br /><br />Many people believe that there is too much technology in the world today, and that technology is the major cause of our environmental pollution. This is not the case. It is the abuse and misuse of technology that should be our major concern. In a more humane civilization, instead of machines displacing people they would shorten the workday, increase the availability of goods and services, and lengthen vacation time. If we utilize new technology to raise the standard of living for all people, then the infusion of machine technology would no longer be a threat.<br /><br />A resource-based world economy would also involve all-out efforts to develop new, clean, and renewable sources of energy: geothermal; controlled fusion; solar; photovoltaic; wind, wave, and tidal power; and even fuel from the oceans. We would eventually be able to have energy in unlimited quantity that could propel civilization for thousands of years. A resource-based economy must also be committed to the redesign of our cities, transportation systems, and industrial plants, allowing them to be energy efficient, clean, and conveniently serve the needs of all people.<br /><br />What else would a resource-based economy mean? Technology intelligently and efficiently applied, conserves energy, reduces waste, and provides more leisure time. With automated inventory on a global scale, we can maintain a balance between production and distribution. Only nutritious and healthy food would be available and planned obsolescence would be unnecessary and non-existent in a resource-based economy.<br /><br />As we outgrow the need for professions based on the monetary system, for instance lawyers, bankers, insurance agents, marketing and advertising personnel, salespersons, and stockbrokers, a considerable amount of waste will be eliminated. Considerable amounts of energy would also be saved by eliminating the duplication of competitive products such as tools, eating utensils, pots, pans and vacuum cleaners. Choice is good. But instead of hundreds of different manufacturing plants and all the paperwork and personnel required to turn out similar products, only a few of the highest quality would be needed to serve the entire population. Our only shortage is the lack of creative thought and intelligence in ourselves and our elected leaders to solve these problems. The most valuable, untapped resource today is human ingenuity.<br /><br />With the elimination of debt, the fear of losing one's job will no longer be a threat This assurance, combined with education on how to relate to one another in a much more meaningful way, could considerably reduce both mental and physical stress and leave us free to explore and develop our abilities.<br /><br />If the thought of eliminating money still troubles you, consider this: If a group of people with gold, diamonds and money were stranded on an island that had no resources such as food, clean air and water, their wealth would be irrelevant to their survival. It is only when resources are scarce that money can be used to control their distribution. One could not, for example, sell the air we breathe or water abundantly flowing down from a mountain stream. Although air and water are valuable, in abundance they cannot be sold.<br /><br />Money is only important in a society when certain resources for survival must be rationed and the people accept money as an exchange medium for the scarce resources. Money is a social convention, an agreement if you will. It is neither a natural resource nor does it represent one. It is not necessary for survival unless we have been conditioned to accept it as such.”<br /><br />Key points of the caucus:<br />1. We intend to offer alternatives to the current outdated solutions that are simply not working.<br />2. We will work to expose the dangers of a profit motivated monetary system, and spread awareness of the various ways this system is corrupted.<br />3. We will work to spread awareness of the technology that could liberate mankind from the monetary system and the profit motive.<br />4. We will offer dialogue as to the flaws of Socialism, Communism, and Capitalism and why none of these solutions will solve the problems of mankind. And offer the research of the Venus Project as data of an alternative to any of these outdated failed systems.<br />5. We do not advocate the use of force or coercion, but seek to demonstrate our ideas to bring understanding of why we feel this is the best direction for mankind.<br /><br />A lot of that platform will look familiar to you. That is because almost all of it is taken directly from Jacque Fresco's writings, with his permission. <br /><br />So to further answer the question: "But I thought we were rejecting the political system?" <br /><br />First lets talk a bit about what third party politics (meaning not Republican or Democrat) does. When you run for office as a Libertarian, Socialist, Green etc. You don't really expect to win. However you do you get a lot more attention for your ideas this way then any other way. Yeah we can canvas, yeah we can march. Sure we can have our gatherings and debates on the internet. But when I ran for Congress as a Libertarian I was invited onto mainstream TV, and radio programs that I would never of been invited to if I were not a candidate. So that is how this helps us reach more people in the mainstream political arena with our ideas. At that point winning/losing is not relevant. We are talking about FREE advertising to the people who are actually interested in what is going on in the world. They have of course been duped into believing that politicians have the answers. So they will be listening. And when they do, they will hear our non-political options. <br /><br />Secondly, we in the Zeitgeist Movement do tend to focus on the "low hanging fruit". The people who are more likely to adopt these ideas already, and who actually care about the world. We are looking for "outside the box" thinkers. And where do you find them? The best place to find the kind of activists we need is in the existing activist structure. And those people can be found in the third parties, such as the Boston Tea Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party, etc. These are the people who actually care. This is the point I shared with Peter if you listened to the radio show where he and I discussed this, and he agreed. There is a purpose for the political system. We reject it as a solution in of itself. HOWEVER, we can use it as part of spreading awareness of OUR solutions. <br /><br />Can real change happen from this? Absolutely! Consider this. Congressman Ron Paul ran for president with very little chance of winning. He fought on regardless. And his campaign opened a lot of eyes. Now the issue of auditing the federal reserve and hopefully abolishing it is on mainstream news almost daily. Before his run for president most of us didn't even know what the federal reserve was or actually did. It was my interest in learning about it that lead people to suggest the first Zeitgeist movie to me. Which lead to me watching Zeitgeist Addendum. And that is the ONLY reason I learned about the Venus Project! As in, if it were not for Ron Paul, you would not have VTV or V-RADIO. And I would not be writing this blog right now. <br /><br />Consider what Congressman Dennis Kucinich's run for president did to spread awareness of the corruption of George Bush and Dick Cheyney when he moved for impeachment? <br /><br />My friend Senator Mike Gravel ran for president to spread awareness for his National Initiative for Democracy, or NI4D. A proposal to introduce federal ballot initiatives for the American people. Allowing us to make our own laws when the political system fails to address the will of the people. His run also exposed a great deal of corruption in politicians like Hillary Clinton. <br /><br />These men ran for office with an agenda to bring about change. The first step of that is telling people that there is even an alternative. That is what they accomplished. And it could not of been done in any other way. <br /><br />Finally, there is another major factor about third party politics that will help us. <br /><br />I have a friend in the Socialist Party of the United States. I had him on my radio show a few times. He was the candidate for president for the party in 2008. He pointed out to me that the Socialist party rarely gets anyone elected, but that the majority of the changes in the Democratic party that lean towards socialist ideals came from the Democratic party wanting to get votes from the Socialist party. This allows ideas to reach mainstream politics in a "trickle up" method. We would not even be talking about things like universal health care if it were not for their efforts. And although we all know the mainstream politicians only pay lip service to these ideas initially, eventually over time they become part of their own political platforms. Obama gets called a socialist all the time. <br /><br />The Green Party's efforts contributed to a new interest in renewable energy, and clean environmental practices. <br /><br />The Libertarian Party's efforts contributed to the interest in smaller more efficient government. <br /><br />So to close on the answer to this question, we are rejecting the political system. We do not believe it is the solution. But it IS a means to reach the people who still believe it is. And it is ALSO a means to reach the people who know it is not. We have several members of the Green Party in our local ZM chapter here in Michigan. They have been able to contribute all sorts of good ideas about activism. <br /><br />So how can you help? <br /><br />One of the reasons I suggested the Boston Tea Party is because it is free to join, and easy to join on the internet. You do not get spam from this party. They do not ask you for money as the party actually goes out of it's way not to raise any. They do this to avoid corruption. <br /><br />If you only sort of want to help, all you have to do is be a U.S. citizen. And go to BostonTea.us and click "join" which is a tab on the upper right. It is easier to join this party then it is to set up a new email account. <br /><br />Then vote on issues presented when they come up. Which is not very often. I will send out alerts via my radio show and blog when we need a vote, and post it on the Zeitgeist forums and my V-RADIO facebook. This will literally take only a few minutes of your life. And it will show support for our ideas. <br /><br />We just had a convention in the Boston Tea Party, and our candidates in the caucus had what is being framed as a "humiliating" defeat because not enough members of the Zeitgeist Movement got behind the effort. All people had to do to help was join a website that was not going to spam them, did not cost anything, and would of asked for a couple of clicks and we would of won that election by a landslide. This is a tangible means to get attention for our efforts, and it requires no more effort then voting on an online poll. <br /><br />If you want to help more, you can post in the public blog on the Boston Tea Party website, or participate in the forums there in support of the caucus. But that is up to you. <br /><br />There is still one vacant slot on the national committee. We lost a run off election to "none of the above" due to lack of participation. Eventually they will open the polls again for this position. Membership to the party is now open again. (They closed it in the middle of the convention apparently according to their rules, it invalidated a lot of our previous votes.) But if you join the party now you can ensure that we win this time. And win every time. The voting populace of the party is actually rather small. It is reasonable that if we wanted to we could take over the entire party. I do not wish to do this at all, but I would like to have a serious presence within the party as that makes our ideas look better too. <br /><br />And finally, another thing we can do to help as members of this party is vote during the next presidential election on who the Boston Tea Party will nominate as their candidate. Consider how much attention we could get for our ideas if a member of the Zeitgeist Movement ran for president on a platform of our ideas? No he would not get elected, but it would be a major chance to get real attention for our ideas. And all we would need to do was participate in an online poll on the website. <br /><br />If you are a member of a United States chapter of the Zeitgeist movement, please give me a hand with this. It will not take much of your time. And will help a lot more then posting on our forums, and even handing out fliers. <br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />VTV-<br /><br />UPDATE: The national committee of the Boston Tea Party in an effort to block people from our caucus from having a chance to occupy the final committee seat have decided to simply not hold an election for it. They do this in spite of the fact that I have voiced interest in it. And they openly admit that they do this to prevent me from being able to go for the position. As obvious and ironic this political corruption is, it actually bodes well for us. Now more then ever I need the help of members of the United States Zeitgeist Movement to get behind this effort. You can support the petition to overturn this unethical action by the national committee by saying you support it here: <br /><br />http://bostontea.us/node/866#comment-2781<br /><br />When we have enough support for this petition it will come before a vote of the membership to overturn the committee's decision. Then we will vote again and send a message to the committee.http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/about-boston-tea-party-and-how-it-can.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-3495735821832925574Mon, 17 May 2010 00:35:00 +00002010-05-16T17:35:32.839-07:00The monetary system and divorce:The monetary system and divorce.<br /><br />In this blog I will be pulling from other blog sources that cite statistics about how the leading cause of divorces and domestic strife comes from money problems or stress related to them. We will be talking about this on an upcoming episode of V-RADIO.<br /><br />From Jet Magazine:<br />http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n1_v91/ai_18930297/pg_2/?tag=content;col1<br /><br />Money enables people to buy many things; unfortunately, it can't buy happiness, love or a lasting relationship. And surprisingly, money turns out to be the leading cause of today's divorces.<br />Fifty-seven percent of divorced couples in the United States cited financial problems as the primary reason for the demise of their marriage. according to a survey conductted by Citibank.<br />Financial incompatibility is one way of explaining the reason money is the primary cause of divorce, says Cheryl D. Broussard, a registered investment advisor and author of the book The Black Woman's Guide To Financial Independence: Smart Ways To Take Charge Of Your Money, Build Wealth, and Achieve Financial Security.<br />Financial compatibility "has a lot to do with how people are raised," cites Broussard, who is a principal of Broussard & Douglas, Inc., located in Palo Alto, CA. "Women want an equal partnership, but men want to take the lead if that's how they were raised."<br />The corrupting effect financial incompatibility has on a marriage is compounded when couples don't discuss their financial problems.<br />Broussard says, People aren't discussing finances. Money is such a taboo subject. People associate bad things with money. If you're in a serious relationship, talk about this. If you don't, it will cause a huge gap."<br />Bonnie Fitch, an attorney from Houston, TX, who is a former associate municipal court judge, says money may be the leading cause of divorce because some couples do not unite and work together when it comes to handling their household finances.<br />The unequal division of money causes problems because control isn't equal. One person will have control and more money than the other. If one person is mismanaging funds, the strain comes when it doesn't benefit the other party. It puts a strain on who will be the person to handle the finances," asserts Fitch, who is sole practitioner of her own firm,<br />Problems also occur within a marriage when a spouses ego gets in the way, insists Fitch. She says that in today's society women are not only contributing to the family, but, in many cases, are the breadwinners, which doesn't sit well with all men.<br />"lf a man isn't completely comfortable with his wife being the breadwinner, that could cause him to feel less secure than if he were the breadwinner. It could put a strain on both in the marriage," says Fitch.<br />She continues, "This situation makes it difficult in terms of the man's self-esteem. It could affect him by making him less romantic or having problems on his job. He could go through a cadre of emotions.,<br />Attorney John W. Wiggins Sr., owner of a law firm in Houston, TX, disagrees that marriages are headed toward disaster if the husband isn't the head of the household financially. Instead, Wiggins says, to the contrary, men want wives who can assist them.<br />Males are not taking [their self-esteem being lowered] so much to heart. They are looking for someone who can assist in the financial pursuit," observes Wiggins. "I don't see so much of that `just stay home and raise the kids' situation,' but I see `have a job and raise the kids.' Men are looking for someone who can assist them."<br />Wiggins offers that the lack of money contributed by either spouse within a marriage and selfishness could both contribute to the financial downfall of a marriage.<br />The lack of money generated by one person in the eyes of the other can cause a problem because the expectations of the other person haven't been met," says Wiggins. "You also have people who have married young or before they acquired stability, and they tend to get selfish. They will feel that they want to enjoy their funds alone because they are doing so well."<br />Another reason money is the leading cause of divorce is because a spouse could use it as a symbol of power in the relationship, says Dr. Allen C. Carter, a clinical psychologist from Atlanta, GA. He believes power struggles may surface throughout marriage, and money is usually the root of the problem.<br />"Money has power connected to it, and it is a way to control," Dr. Carter tells Jet. "It is one of the most powerful ways that we think we can control people. It is a symbol of a way to get something that you don't have."<br />Also an adjunct faculty member at his alma mater, Morehouse College, he notes that using money as a way to control one's spouse "comes out of fear. Money is used to keep a person within a certain grasp or boundary in a way that makes the controller feel safe," Dr. Carter states.<br />He also says that some partners define themselves in the relationship with money, which leads to conflicts.<br />"If a person is rigidly identified with the social role that the man is the breadwinner and the woman is the helper, it will produce great conflict for both,, explains Dr. Carter.<br />"The man is usually the authority, and money has control and authority connected to it. The man may feel he has to be the man, by having control of the money. A woman Will accept the role by allowing the man to have the authority, but she may feel conflicted and confused for awhile because she feels it's unfair," Dr. Carter adds.<br />Shelvin Louise Marie Hall, a judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago, IL, agrees that money is symbolic. She believes that money doesn't cause problems in a marriage; however, what it represents to people does.<br />"[Money] is a symbol of what the real problem is. The fight really isn't about money, it's about love the lack and expression of it," concludes Judge Hall.<br />She adds, "When the wife tells her husband that he doesn't spend money On her, she's really saying he doesn't care about her because if he did he would spend money on her. she wants more attention. When the wife shops all the time, the husband will feel that she's wasting money. He's saying she doesn't care about the resources ... he really means she should spend more time at home, focusing on their relationship, instead of being at the mall. <br />The most frequent cause of divorce:<br />http://www.helium.com/items/133627-the-most-frequent-cause-of-divorce<br />By Louise Ciccone<br />“Statistics state, that one of the the most frequent causes of divorce, are financial constraints. Not having enough money, to do the things you want. Not having enough money, to take that well deserved vacation. Spending more, then we have. Making purchases, that are irrational. Decisions made, over what amount goes where and to whom. Decisions, about how to manage the money, who will manage the money, and when to manage the money. How much money will, and should be spent, on items that are needed. How much money, should be invested.<br />Stress related to finances when an unexpected situation occurs (death in the family, broken down stove, children's dental work). Problems deciding what amount of money is who's and whether or not it should be jointly or separate from one another.Each spouse may have a different view and/or perception of how money should be spent, etc, and sometimes do not find out, how different their views really are, until a money situation arises.<br />It is true that communication, is the root of all healthy relationships, but I believe that the financial part of marriage, only makes communication worse sometimes. Money is the number one cause of divorce in this nation and with that there is no debate.<br />Go ahead think about your own relationship. Are you really fighting about the dirty dishes or are you using the dirty dishes as an excuse for your anger because the real problem is about money.You just may not know how to say it.You may be too frustrated to bring it up. You may be embarrassed. Trust me, you do not need to be. A little more then ninety percent of people, in our country, has experienced or is experiencing, one form of financial problem or another.As long as there are money problems, there will continue to be an uprise in the divorce statistics. Of course, there are several other things, that should not be excluded, when it comes to speaking about reasons for divorce. We cannot ignore the fact, that we seem to have lost our ability to communicate. We have seemed to have lost our confidence in ourselves in being able to communicate.<br />Marriage is no longer seen as a sacred union between two people, that will remain that way forever. Marriage is no longer regarding as much in the same manner as fifty years ago.So much has changed since then.Our priorities are seemingly confused, and do not seem to be focused on maintaining positive relationships. Instead, we seem to focus more and more of our attention, on external objects to make us feel better.Which brings me back to the main reason divorce is sky rocketing. Maybe the husband is dying to buy the newest 42" television for the basement and you do not agree that is a logical purchase.An argument will probably break out. If there is no argument and the couple does sit and talk calmly about the situation, there is no guarantee that they will agree or find a middle ground for the situation.<br />Communication is vital to a marriage, never mind to relationships in general. What communication will not do though, is make you feel different about your views, all the time. It will not always, end up in a desirable manner. It will not always, end up that you were able to change someones mind. It is not a guarantee that if you know how to communicate, that your problems will go away. All communication can do, is allow you to speak about how you feel and to learn to listen to the other person. It allows you the time and space, to sit down and discuss things.It will not change a person's thoughts, actions, perceptions or wants and needs.It will not change a person into what you want them to be....Communication is vital, as I have already mentioned, but it is not the only thing that keeps marriages together, or forces them apart.<br />There are many reasons that divorce happens, and communication, though very important, is not the only thing that needs to be addressed....it seems these days society has lost the true meaning of marriage. We have lost the reason for marriage in the first place and are adapting the core of marriage to suit our own personal thoughts and desires, as well as personal views and perceptions on what marriage is......So many things that effect the reason, that divorce happens much more these days. I think we have lost something long ago. Just ,makes me wonder. <br />If divorce is high and views about marriage are changing, and being altered, why then is the reason for marriage, written exactly as it was in the bible hundreds of years ago. Marriage has not changed, people have .I think maybe that in itself is the frequent cause of divorce in general. Our thoughts, views,beliefs, experiences, etc have changed so much we do not know how to embrace the union of marriage anymore and do not seem to take it as seriously anymore. It seems the same amount of time put into a marriage is similar to that of ordering a chocolate ice cream and then eating half of it realizing you wish you got the other flavor.You throw the other half in the trash and order another one. <br />Why do we do this. It is simple to understand. We do it because, we can.”http://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/monetary-system-and-divorce.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-5332859344830213150Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:23:00 +00002010-04-13T19:33:45.073-07:00A reply to "Euripide Sneed" on the Anticultist blog.After Earth 2.0 issued their blog post attempting to explain why they had parted ways with the Venus Project, the Anti-cultist blog put their article up on his own blog as some evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Venus Project. Shortly afterward a user calling himself Euripide Sneed commented on the blog. You can see his comments here:<br /><br />http://anticultist.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/earth-2-movie-venus-proect-fails-and-reators-cut-fresco-loose/<br /><br />In any case, this is the reply from Roxanne I got in regards to this mans accusations. Whomever he is. <br /><br />Reply from Jacque and Roxanne: <br /><br />This is from a false name and is a false article. This only means that Jacque is getting more known these false accusations and lies, as Jacque always stated, will start to surface when people become more well know. This person sounds bitter and angry but also is grossly misinformed about the situations he is trying to discuss. There were many people who came to Jacque’s lectures in Miami in the 1970’s they came and when mostly depending upon how relevant the information was to their lives. <br /><br />In fact we are now achieving some of these past lectures and we felt the information would be of great interest to many people. These are the lectures from the Miami area during the 1970,s. We now have just compiled 15 of these lectures on three 5 CD sets and on almost all of them you can hear Jacque at the end say it is $3.00 for non-members and $2.00 for members of Sociocyberneering not the $10 -$20 this person claims Jacque charged. This helps to show you what this person says below is utterly false in regards to what Jacque used to charge and also in many other areas as we will try and explain. <br /><br />Many of Jacque’s friends he had even in childhood are still his friends (those that are still alive) alone with many that went to his lectures in 160’ and 70’s. <br /><br />Many people who attended the lectures that Jacque held in his home wanted to get together and purchase land and build something. Jacque was going to supply all of the designs. Jacque offered drawing lesson so people could participate in some way but it really boiled down to three people do did most of the work the others were mostly verbal. <br /><br />They did put up enough money to get a down payment for about 40 acres of land in Naples, Florida for about $600. an acre, but they did not continue the payments except for 3 people but those 3 could not make the land payments alone so a lawyer friend of Jacque’s, Cleave Herring, came forth and continued the payments until we could sell the land. Nothing was made on that venture. <br /><br />It was strange because if the group did follow through with the payment and kept the land if they ever wanted to sell it would have been worth millions because that area became a very exclusive wealthy area to live. The land value rocketed in Naples. But Jacque was not going into it as a business venture. <br /><br />I imagine people pulled out for different reasons but some said the zoning board would never let Fresco build what they wanted to build. After everyone pulled out. Jacque, with drawings, went to the zoning board out of curiosity and asked for a half hour to speak with the person in charge. They spoke for an hour and a half the gentleman asked if he could join the organization and said he would do whatever he could to help the project develop. Unfortunately by that time there was no organization after the members stopped paying on the land. <br /><br />There was no profit from the sale of the land in Naples in fact money was lost after paying back Herring, the real estate agent and the rest of the mortgage. We were just glad to get it sold so there was no more debt piled up. That whole episode was disappointing to Jacque and the other two people who continued to work with him. After all he put out a lot of effort with people for over a decade to teach them things in all areas. <br /><br />As I said some of these lectures are now available to the public and can be found on our website. We are working on getting more available but it is a long process to do this. <br /><br />The money to buy the land in Venus came from the sale of a home in Miami Jacque sold. He lived there for about a year of more. This house was in the black section of Miami so you know the land value was not high. <br /><br />This person states: <br /><br />The property near Miami was purchased for approximately $16,000,which was a lot of money in the 70’s, when people were trying to live on minimum wage. I don’t know how much it was sold for, since it was still undeveloped. Probably approximately the same price. The property in Venus was approximately $40K, because it was more acreage. I believe that the property in Venus is under his own name so that there is no distribution requirement if he sells the property. When he sold enough money to pay for the Venus property, with the help of the Sociocyberneering funds. So, he did put up a few buildings on the Venus property which would serve as his new home. But, the value of all the buildings “combined” would be under $100K because they are sort of made of metal and gunnite, as opposed to more expensive materials like bricks or lumber. So, the asking price of the land is a<br /><br />little high compared to values of the surrounding acreage. <br /> <br /><br />This person who wrote this nasty article knows nothing about the prices he is remarking on. He is lying about all of this. The first parcel we purchased in Venus was 10 acres for a little over $1,600 an acre. Then over the years we purchase two other contiguous parcels that adds up to a little over 21+ acres. He knows very little about building processes either because building out of concrete and steal is far more expensive and durable than brick and timber. All of the other numbers are grossly incorrect as well. <br /><br />We never changed the name to The Venus Project to cover up any deals regarding the sale of the land in Naples. We changed the name long after the purchase of the land in Venus because Sociocyberneering was too difficult to pronounce for people or even to remember. This was before the word cyber was even used. The Venus Project was simple and easy. <br /><br />We don’t want to spend much more time on this nonsense as most of what he is saying are lies, projections and out of some other misunderstanding. He never checked his statements with us and does not even use his real name. If you listen to the Fresco’s Classic Lecture Series you will see that he took that name after hearing it from Jacque, which is ironic, but we mainly wanted to make a statement as to what happened in regards to the Naples property.<br /><br />Jacque and Roxannehttp://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/reply-to-euripide-sneed-on-anticultist.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-853637234066123194.post-890340562380266761Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:18:00 +00002010-10-05T06:31:38.429-07:00A look inside the mind of a troll...</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">So I have been monitoring when of our more notorious trolls for the purpose of getting inside the strategies they employ. I am sure many of you are familiar with him. But who he is is not as important as what he is doing. And why. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">I know many of you have read my post “When will we have no rules?” about the issue of when the ZM will be without rules and moderators who enforce them. I pointed out in this blog post that the intention of many of the people who want to remove these fail-safes want them removed so that they can be the new authority. Some of the trolls claimed that even some of the moderation team thought my show on this subject was BS. Then recently on another forum one of our star trolls revealed why it is he behaves the way he does. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">The premise that must be understood is that these people engage in hostile behavior to assert control over other users in a chat room, forum or voice chat. Some of them are better at this then others. But it is still very real. I pointed out how they will become the real despotic authoritarians but they do it without moderator powers or rules. (Which is why they claim we don't need them.) They do it by directly insulting and therefore mentally assaulting users who do not tow the line and respect their authority. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">So the quote I am about to bring up exposes this in great detail. Before I quote it though I will give you a little background on the conversation that lead to this troll exposing himself. Recently on an anti-ZM forum the users there began to go after him because of his belief in 911 conspiracy theories. Because this forum is not moderated the inevitable free-for-all of insult slinging went back and forth. They started to attack him for what is rather obvious mental delusions and derangement. After a user who obviously knows who he is exposed information about him and linked a couple of recordings of his previous maniac rants on various ZM voice chat mediums he defended his behavior of attacking a user by stating he was trying to re-program the brain of his victim. The following quotes are about this:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">“<b>I definitely was acting like a drill sergeant, I was reprogramming his mind, and it was successful. Now he feels a twinge of anxiety any time he contemplates threatening people, and it curbs his behaviour somewhat</b>.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">“<b>I know how to change minds, the technique is called repeated, rhythmic insult, and it's virtually infallible. The marines use it to turn librarians into paid killers.</b> “</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">Here is a link to the recording in question. Some of the parts of this recording are not really relevant, but if you get through it you will eventually get to the lunacy that ensued when this individual took it upon himself to try and modify the behavior of another person. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3746210/gritsban.mp3">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3746210/gritsban.mp3</a> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">Here you have someone who is actively engaging in what amounts to psychological warfare. Ironically after stating that we are failing because we are using all the same failed methods of control that the “state” does. So his solution? Turn to the far more insidious methods of the “state” that are used to brainwash our soldiers. An interesting grasp on morality to be sure. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">I understand the big scare people have of moderators and authority figures getting out of control. The funny thing is we are actually creating these problems within the moderation team when we constantly hound them and allow them to be hounded. There may have been one or two examples of abuse of authority by members of the moderation team. But there is also a large number of trolls who cry “WOLF!” whenever a moderator acts against them at all. And this brings to bear our inherent fear of the abuse of authority. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">Then we find ourselves turning on the mods who are here to protect us. And more importantly protect the quality of conversation. And then the call of abuse of authority is itself abused. People start calling abuse of authority even when they are in the wrong. The hysteria created leads to a situation where a tiny minority continues to project itself as a majority. This minority being people who actually have problems with the moderation team. They project over and over again that “a lot of people” or “many people” or “more and more people” have a problem with the moderators. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">Just a little while ago on my Facebook someone went so far as to say “This behavior is pushing out the majority of the movement! All that is left on the forums now are moderators and people in positions of authority within the movement!” which is obviously absurd. But like Hitler said </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">“Repeat a lie often enough and it will become truth.” </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">I tried to explain in detail in my previous post about authority what exactly was taking place. About how these trolls ask us to eliminate all authority and that if we do this we will all be free to talk and express ourselves. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">The part they leave out is that they actually want to do this so that they will be free to control the minds of the people in the chat rooms through bullying, intimidation and repeated rhythmic insults so that they can be ones who effectively “ban” or “mute” people through their destructive language. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">We can have free speech. But free speech was meant to be the free exchange of constructive criticisms and exchanges of ideas. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">You cannot have either in a situation where the only people actually free to do this are the ones who are more creative and diligent in their insults and bully tactics then other users. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">I realized that the best person to explain it was the worst troll in the history of Wikipedia. Codie Eugene Vickers. A.K.A Hominy Grits, A.K.A. Plautus Satire, A.K.A. Kyle Troy. And this is how he explained it: </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">“<b>I know how to change minds, the technique is called repeated, rhythmic insult, and it's virtually infallible. The marines use it to turn librarians into paid killers.”</b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT">Let me ask you to consider this. Is it free speech if someone has the ability to destroy conversation anytime they want by employing these tactics? </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT">Allowing the absolute freedom of speech in situations like this is like saying that the right to own a handgun also gives you the right to shoot people with it if you feel like it. In allowing people to shoot each other with impunity in the name of freedom we just hand the reins of tyranny over to whomever is willing to do the shooting. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT">The whole time that this person is whining that we are supposedly using all the despotic tactics of the system that we oppose, he is using something far more insidious then laws or people to enforce them. He is willfully and intentionally engaging in psychological warfare. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT">The biggest threat to freedom of speech is also people abusing it. They blame the system but the reason even the best intentioned systems eventually have to put restrictions on things is not because of peaceful people speaking their minds. It's because of people acting like this. And some of them even revel in that. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">“I've induced them to put harsh restrictions and an even harsher face on this movement.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">So despite all of his self-glorified delusions of being some sort of freedom fighter it is people like him that are the text book examples of the downside of freedom of speech. Along with the racists, bigots, etc. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT">It's important that if you want your forum to be free of pollution of this kind that you speak out against it. And if you really want to see less out of the moderators there needs to be a paradigm shift in how people address this sort of thing. The notion that it's going to happen by just throwing a lever and eliminating all authority when we are still living in the value system that makes that infeasible is absurd. The fact that people even value or think this sort of behavior is productive in any way proves that we are not ready for that. And people acting like it, enabling it or justifying it keep us further and further away from the days when we actually will have no mods or rules. </p><br /><br />Author's note: Here is another episode of Codie Vickers the troll.<br /><br />http://dl.dropbox.com/u/752942/MumbleGrits.22.12.09.ogghttp://v-radioblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/look-inside-mind-of-troll.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (VTV)11